Life at the Top
by DoofusPrime
Summary: Drakken's dream of world domination comes true.  As Kim Possible and Shego find themselves dealing with unfamiliar new lives, they must discover how to get what they want when circumstances spiral beyond their control.
1. Victory

**Victory**

XX

Kim opened the door to the weather machine's cockpit and looked inside. Empty.

"Wade, there's nobody at the wheel here!"

"It must be remote controlled."

"What now?"

The ground dropped farther away outside the weather machine's cockpit window as Kim waited for an answer. She looked at the Kimmunicator's screen with concern; Wade was taking a long time.

"Open up the panel beneath the control board," he finally said, "and I'll figure out what to do from there."

Kim opened up the panel and stared into the tiny compartment. A mass of colored wires were bunched inside, tangled like plastic veins. Strong winds whipped her hair as they rushed in through the cockpit door, coming from the open maintenance hatch on the top of the machine that Kim had used to break into it. Over the sound of the wind whistling in her ears, Kim heard an ominous creaking noise coming from outside on the top of the weather machine, which told her the spraying apparatus was extending and preparing to carry out the unthinkable. She had only seconds left.

"Wade, talk to me!"

Her young friend's familiar face popped up in the Kimmunicator's viewscreen.

"I'm not sure. This is a new weather machine model, not what Drakken used last time – it's automated, for one thing - so it's taking me a minute to pull up the schematics for this one."

Kim waited as Wade typed furiously, pivoting back and forth between several keyboards. She wished she had Ron around to back her up - she could use a bit of the Ron factor about now. Unfortunately, the two of them had been in a hurry to board the weather machine before it lifted off, and by the time she noticed Ron was not close behind her, she saw him being captured by henchmen in the small airfield where they had found the machine. She didn't know where they were going to take him, but she would have to rescue him later - she needed to stop the weather machine first, since allowing it to release its payload into the atmosphere would make rescuing Ron a moot point.

"Hurry up Wade. We're running out of time here!"

"Typing."

Kim stared at Wade in frustration. He had been acting a bit strangely only a couple days after they had begun this mission, from what Kim could remember. As if he wasn't taking it seriously enough. Unfortunately, Wade was her only hope. For a moment Kim considered cutting all the wires randomly, or perhaps just cutting the red one – it was always the red one, wasn't it? - but another sound from outside the weather machine told her that it was already too late. The machine was releasing Drakken's formula into the atmosphere.

Kim felt shocked, almost paralyzed. It wasn't often that Wade failed to come through in time. Before she lost more valuable time, Kim shook herself into action and strapped on a gas mask which she had taken along with her for just such an occasion. Outside the weather machine's cockpit window, Kim had been able to see the night sky only moments ago, but now storm clouds were beginning to collect as they roiled with angry energy. She wondered if she would be able to see Drakken's spray clouding the air. All she could see at the moment was the white orb of the moon, rapidly fading out as the weather machine stirred the atmosphere into a frenzy. A lightning bolt streaked through the air as deafening thunder rushed from outside into the weather machine's cockpit.

"Wade, it's already being dispersed," she said. Maybe she could still stop the weather machine before too much damage was done. She knew it was probably wishful thinking; Wade had told her that within a few minutes, even a small amount would spread through the atmosphere.

"Wade?" she asked. Hearing no answer, she stared at the Kimmunicator. Wade had a strange expression on his face.

"Wade, do we have anything?"

There was no furious typing, no manic muttering. Wade stared back at Kim, serenely apathetic. He leaned back in his chair and smiled.

"It's alright, Kim."

"What?"

"Everything's alright, Kim. Don't sweat it! Don't take this the wrong way or anything – I want to stay friends with you – but I had to mislead you for a while. There's nothing you can do now though, so you don't have to worry anymore. If you ask me, I think Drakken and Shego will do a good job of running things."

Kim stared at the smiling boy in the screen and felt a wave of fear wash over her body. How had the spray affected Wade already? He was miles away. There was no way it could be so fast-acting. After another second of thought, Kim realized that Wade had already been taken over. He just mentioned misleading her. Wade had been deliberately undermining the mission, or at least stalling her and Ron for as long as possible.

Kim turned the Kimmunicator off with a curse, and Wade's smiling face disappeared with a blip as she returned the device to her pocket. Ron had been captured by already, Wade was gone, and Kim knew that she would be taken over in moments; this mission was turning out to be a spectacular failure. She checked to make sure her gas mask was on tight, although she was beginning to realize that she couldn't be sure it would protect her, seeing as she had taken Wade's word on how the formula worked. He had told her a gas mask would be enough, since it was an airborne formula that spread through the atmosphere to contaminate anyone who breathed it in, but he had been vague about the details. Now Kim understood why his information was so lacking.

Her options gone and her frustration rising, Kim reached into the open electrical compartment and grabbed a handful of wires, jerking them out in a shower of sparks. The sound of the gas being released from the top of the weather machine ceased, and the machine itself jerked drunkenly out of its flight path, but Kim knew it was too late. She just wanted to do some damage. The machine dropped through the air like a stone, and Kim felt a sick sensation in her stomach as she fell through the sky.

Out the cockpit, up a ladder, through the maintenance hatch. Jump.

A slick metal surface gave way to empty air as she leaped off of the weather machine's falling bulk and into the night. Both Kim and the weather machine had dropped through the storm clouds it had created, and a landscape of trees and dark fields rose up in the distance beneath them. She pulled a ripcord attached to her backpack as she fell with the rain, and the backpack tore open as two extendable wings unfolded to either side of her. The earth was rushing up more quickly now, but she managed to gain control over her descent.

Kim thought about what to do next as she dropped through the sky. She had failed to stop the weather machine – now she had to find Drakken and Shego. They would have the antidote, as well as Ron. If only she could still ask Wade whether or not he had located their new lair yet.

As Kim sailed towards the ground, she glimpsed a small convoy of vehicles in the distance approaching the field in which she was about to land. They were small and distant, but much like the ground, they were getting closer. She tried to make them out more clearly, but the night and rain obscured them, and moments later she was distracted by the sound of the weather machine hitting the earth. She had slowed down as the wings extended, and the weather machine had reached the ground first.

Kim looked down just in time to see a massive explosion mushroom out from the machine's impact. A malignant mass pushed up into the air as she approached, orange and black in its rippling fire. Reaching out to grab her. She leveled out and slowed her descent as the ground drew near, and a shock wave from the blast pushed her up into the air again temporarily. Kim shifted her wings and narrowly avoided being hit by the rush of flames as she came down to the side of the blast, hitting the ground hard and gritting her teeth as she rolled several times. The wings snapped off and she came to a halt, gasping for breath.

Prickling heat danced over Kim's body as flames rose from the wrecked weather machine. A rain of debris and twisted metal, which had been thrown high into the air from the impact, peppered the ground around her as they fell back down. Kim shielded herself from the black snowfall. She tried to crawl back, farther away from the fiery wreckage, but found herself still woozy from her impact with the ground.

"Ugh," she groaned. "You're going to pay for this, Drakken."

As the fire from the wrecked machine began to die down, Kim took a few moments to lay on the ground and catch her breath. She stared up into the air. A few stars struggled to twinkle through a haze of thick black smoke and rain. What to do next?

Kim's first instinct was to call Wade on the Kimmunicator, but she knew that was a waste of time now. She felt miserable, exhausted. Her body was soaked, as was the ground beneath her. As she looked over her sopping wet mission suit, still lying on the ground, a peculiar sensation began to come over her, a kind of tingling in her mind, and she realized the gas mask had not worked. Maybe there was something wrong with it, maybe Wade had lied. She didn't know, but she knew something was not right.

_No, Kim... fight it... don't let them..._

Her memories stayed the same. Many of her opinions stayed the same. Her likes and dislikes, her knowledge of the world. Some things, however, were becoming different. Kim thought about why she had gone on the mission, why it was so important to stop Drakken and Shego. Her mind was drawing a blank.

Why was she always fighting against them? They weren't that bad, really. As a matter of fact, the more she thought about it, the more she felt bad for ever doubting them. Drakken was a genius, and Shego was clearly her superior in both fashion and martial arts. Kim couldn't help but laugh as a sense of peace began to come over her. She had the same worries, the same fears as she had in the past, but suddenly they seemed irrelevant. It would be okay if she trusted in Drakken and Shego.

Kim stood up and felt her entire body aching. She had not broken anything, but walking hurt a little. But that didn't matter now – as she limped away from the wreckage of the weather machine, still shooting up flames despite the downpour, she knew that her pain was nothing compared to the joy of knowing Drakken and Shego would take care of everything.

Kim had only limped a few yards away from the wreck when she heard the sound of engines roaring. The convoy, which she had seen earlier just before the explosion, had finally arrived. Headlights slithered back and forth over the fallow field, breaking through the darkness as cars and vans pulled to a stop in a loose circle around her. Kim stopped as uniformed figures poured out of the vehicles.

"Who's that?" she asked.

As the figures approached, the dim glow of the headlights illuminated their uniforms. They were Drakken's men. All of them except for one, that is. Ron Stoppable stepped forward from the tightening ring of henchmen and smiled. She could just make out his eyes, glinting in the darkness like black beads.

"KP, what's up? Are you feeling okay?"

"Of course, Ron."

Ron gently took her by the arm and led her towards one of the vans. The back door was open, and a couple of Drakken's henchmen were positioned to either side of it. He removed her gas mask, tossing it aside in the soggy grass and mud.

"You don't need that. Do you want to go see Drakken and Shego?"

Kim smiled in anticipation.

"I'd love to."

The two of them got inside the van. The doors closed behind them, and the orange glow of the still-flaming weather machine receded in the van's back window. Kim watched it as they drove away. As the van snaked down a dirt road on its way to Drakken's lair, she felt bruised and battered, but better than she ever had before.

XX

The van came to a stop. Bright lights poured in through its back windows, through the metal grating that covered them, making a latticed pattern over the dark interior where Kim sat with her captors. The throbbing hum of people talking to each other could be heard outside. Ron stood up and crouched under the van's low ceiling, his smile still pasted across his face, and opened the doors.

There were people all around her – not just henchmen, but all kinds of people, even a few faces that Kim recognized from Middleton. Most of them seemed to be digging and carrying supplies over a massive construction site.. A cacaphony of sounds reached her from the site: buzzing, hammering, welding. It was too early to tell what they were going to build, but based on the sheer size of the site, whatever was being built would be gigantic when it was finished. Floodlights illuminated the area, and beyond piles of construction supplies and parked vehicles, Kim could see chain-linked fences topped by barbed wire in the distance.

It was still raining outside, and although some tarps and tents were set up in various places, most of the workers around the construction site seemed to be soaking wet and indifferent to the weather. Kim could understand why; making Drakken and Shego happy must have been a strong motivation for them. She knew she'd be willing to work in the rain all day for her two former foes.

"Hello, Mrs. Kowalski," Kim said to an old woman who was digging away into muddy ground with a shovel. The mud seeped back into the hole she was making almost as fast as she shoveled it out, but she soldiered on with a smile.

"Nice to see you, Kim Possible! Going to visit Drakken and Shego?"

"That's right."

"Enjoy yourself, missy!"

Kim greeted several more familiar faces as she passed. Marcella was there, and Kim told her to be sure to practice their new routine for school before she joined Ron again on their way to the center of the construction site. They reached a mechanical lift, and Ron stood aside to let Kim step on first. He joined her, along with several henchmen, and pressed the down button. The night sky disappeared as the lift descended into the earth.

Kim thought about the construction site they had just passed through and the underground lair they were entering. They weren't far from Middleton, and the whole site was like a big bullseye to someone with Wade's technical genius. Her young friend, of course, had been lying when he said he couldn't locate their new lair. What a kidder, she thought with a chuckle.

Ron looked pleasantly at Kim in the darkness of the shaft. She could no longer see his eyes, but she could just barely discern the outline of his upturned mouth, a glint of teeth in blackness.

"This isn't as sick and wrong as we thought it would be, don't you think?"

Kim had to agree. Their sitch was most definitely healthy and right.

XX

White circles of light floated over Kim's head. She was still tired and sore from the rest of the evening, but she felt a multitude of bodies behind her, pressing gently into her, keeping her going as they went farther into the lair. Kim was not alone anymore. It was not just Ron who had her back, but everyone who shared her love of their green and blue leaders.

They were in some kind of hallway. Going into the earth, she thought. Sloping down, down. Globe-shaped lights hung from the ceiling at intervals; to some, they might look like malignant eyes, but to Kim they were benevolent. Silent fireflies, guiding her way to the two most amazing people in the world.

Minutes passed, and finally the surge of people behind her came to a stop. Kim was standing on the floor of a larger, brighter room. Ron and the henchmen behind her surrounded Kim in a circle, but also stepped back, clearing out an open space into which two figures stepped closer to her. One in blue, one in green.

"Nice of you to drop in, Kim Possible!"

Doctor Drakken wrung his hands joyfully as Shego looked over their captor with a smirk.

"Ready, Doctor D?"

Drakken shrugged apathetically.

"It was your idea, Shego. Do it if you wish."

Shego snapped her fingers, and Ron stepped forward towards Kim, still smiling. She smiled back at him and watched in interest as Ron pulled a hypodermic needle and syringe from his pants pocket. She wanted to know what Ron was doing, but she trusted him implicitly – because whatever he was doing was Shego's desire – and stood patiently as Ron injected a clear fluid into her arm. After finishing, Ron gave her a sympathetic look and put a bandaid on the spot. He stepped back into the crowd of henchmen surrounding them.

Moments passed, and Kim began to feel the same tingling sensation in her mind as she had when she was lying in the field, staring up at the rain-drenched sky. Her sense of simple serenity washed away as fear and disgust took its place. Fear at her situation, disgust at what she had just been feeling moments ago. She felt betrayed; her best friend, her boyfriend, had just stabbed her with a needle. And why? What was going on? She blinked and looked at her two captors, Drakken and Shego, and felt her love for them melting away, replaced by white-hot rage.

Kim was about to leap at them when she felt her muscles begin to slacken, her vision blur. Maybe her landing in the field had been harder than she had thought. She tried to fight against the languid sensation that was enfolding her, but her muscles seemed to be weakening. She sunk to the ground as she felt her body begin to stop responding.

Drakken smiled as Kim stared up at him in a daze. "So, Kim Possible, how does it feel to be thwarted so completely? Even your sidekick has turned against you!" Drakken looked around for Ron. "Where did that boy just go, anyway? Oh yes, there you are – come here, Kim's sidekick!"

Ron stepped forward from the crowd and stood beside Drakken and Shego, still smiling.

"I gotta hand it to you, Doctor D," said Shego, "this did work out pretty well. And after we almost pulled it off with that crazy Lil Diablo scheme, too! You've been on a roll."

Drakken blushed at the rare compliment from his partner in evil. "You're too kind, Shego. I suppose I have to thank Kim's sidekick and her little computer genius friend for their help. Even if we had to persuade them a little."

Kim was still lying prone on the floor. She shifted feebly and groaned as she listened to Drakken's gloating; even through her drug-induced haze, she understood Drakken's rant well enough to know she had been fooled.

"Wade..."

"What's that?" Drakken asked, but he had made out the name of Kim's tech genius already. "Oh yes, Wade. We had him brainwashed days ago. Not that difficult, really – we just brainwashed his mother, who was far less careful than her son, and then had her slip him some of the formula in a cup of water."

"F – formula..." she muttered.

"Yes, that's right, the brainwashing formula. MC Ultra, I've chosen to name it. I had all of that brainwashing shampoo just laying around, and I thought, why put it to waste? At first I was considering brainwashing some soldiers, maybe find a train load of their rations to contaminate, but I realized I wasn't thinking big enough! And what's bigger than the earth? After all, world domination is my goal, is it not?

"The shampoo was inferior because I had to rely on others for its success. People had to buy it, use it on themselves, or at least I would have to forcefully shampoo their heads, and let's face it - some people have serious hygiene problems."

Shego found herself shrugging and nodding in agreement. Her boss had a point.

"Anyway, I used the shampoo as the basis for MC Ultra, a formula that could spread quickly over the earth when released into the atmosphere. All I needed was a delivery mechanism, and I already had experience with weather machines, so Shego and I stole another one from that stupid Wacky Wally's sales yard which we could use as a blueprint to make more! In retrospect, perhaps we shouldn't have chosen the same place to steal it from, and perhaps I shouldn't have been chatting about my brainwashing plans with the salesman."

"Yeah, I really shoulda been watching you closer," agreed Shego.

"He was just so friendly! And the donuts – oh, let me tell you, Shego..."

Drakken licked his lips, a sight which caused Shego to shudder a little.

"As I was saying, Kim Possible – when we caught wind of the fact that you and your computer genius friend were on to us, at first I thought my plans were ruined as usual, but then I realized it could be a hidden blessing. We brainwashed Wade and used his misdirection to stall you and the buffoon for as long as we could while we assembled more weather machines to launch around the world. You rely too much on that boy, you know. And it's a good thing someone will stop looking for more details once they think they've got their enemy's plans figured out."

Drakken began to pace around, gesticulating madly as his brainwashed followers watched him with rapt attention. "We launched this weather machine in Middleton first as a distraction, knowing you would spend your time trying to stop it, and voila! Mission accomplished! And guess what's going on right now, Kim Possible?"

He waved theatrically to numerous computer monitors behind him, and while Kim's vision was a little blurry, she didn't need to see much to know what Drakken was talking about. The other weather machines were all doing their job of spreading more of his formula.

"And that," he said as he pointed triumphantly to Kim, "_that_ is why you had no chance. While you and the buffoon were focused on trying to stop a single weather machine, others had been secretly launched all over the world! You made the foolish mistake of assuming I would carry out the same plan twice!"

"Well," said Shego, "to be honest, it's not exactly a new plan. I mean, you already used both the-"

"Shego! Zip it!"

"Why," Kim slurred, "why'm I not... not like them?" Her head nodded faintly at the brainwashed crowd surrounding herself and her two captors.

Drakken smiled and gave a faint nod in Ron's direction, who was still holding the needle. He smiled at Kim and held it up for her to see. She could still feel a faint sting where the sharp metal had pierced her skin.

"Well, you were like them for a moment there, as I'm sure you noticed," laughed Drakken. "That shot your sidekick – er, is the sidekick her boyfriend now, Shego?"

From what Shego had seen of the two of them in the weeks since their failed Lil Diablo plot, they did seem to be a pair now. She nodded her head in confirmation.

"Anyways, sidekick, boyfriend, whatever – the shot he just gave you contains a tranquilizer to render you temporarily incapable of fighting, but it has something else in it as well. A little dose of immunity against MC Ultra!" Drakken grinned at his captive, who stared back vacantly. "You're very welcome."

Kim tried to process Drakken's explanation, but it made no sense. Why would they give her an immunity to the brainwashing formula? She was their greatest threat. She knew there was more they weren't telling her.

"What're gonna do with me," she managed to slur.

Drakken gave Shego a sidelong glance after hearing Kim's question.

"Funny you should ask," he said. "Shego and I were discussing that ourselves, and we seemed to have a strange reversal of positions. I do like to toy with you and the buffoon, but this time I felt that we should dispose of you quickly. Shego, however, had other ideas. Usually she's the one who likes the quick and dirty approach, but this time, she had a different plan. She's the one you should really be thanking for making you immune to my brainwashing formula, as a matter of fact."

Drakken snapped his fingers at the crowd standing around them and pointed at Kim. The crowd surged in again to pick her up, Ron in the lead. Kim felt her Ron grab her arms, and Shego herself grabbed Kim's feet as she helped lift her foe with an ominous grin.

"Don't you worry, Princess. We're actually gonna let you go!"

XX

Kim was taking a van ride for the second time that evening. This time, however, she knew where she was going. Her vision was becoming less blurry as the drug began to wear off, and as she stared out the window, she began to recognize the road stretching out behind them.

She was going home.

Before long, the van reached Kim's neighborhood and slowed down. Several familiar houses passed by outside the window, and finally the van made a turn and reversed into a driveway. Her driveway. Ron and the other henchmen riding with her got up from their seats and opened the doors, like last time, and pulled Kim out to deposit her on the wet ground. The rain had slackened, but it was still drizzling steadily. Kim looked back as the henchmen – except Ron – got back inside the van and closed the door as it drove out into the road and left the neighborhood.

"Here you go, KP," said Ron as he extended a hand. Kim looked up at him in confusion and took his hand as he helped her to her feet and led her closer to her door, ringing the doorbell for her. The way he propped her up and led her to her front door was almost gentle. Kim was surprised that he still seemed to care about her. Just an illusion, she thought.

"I gotta go home, my parents are expecting me," he said. "Soon you'll see how great everything will be, don't worry! Things will be totally badical from now on!"

Ron wore a smile that was somehow both pleasant and unsettling. Kim looked at him, trying to read his face. Was he still her best friend? Was he still Ron? Or was he someone else? Ron walked away towards his own house as Kim watched. His friendly demeanor, his helping hand; Kim was tempted to think it _was_ Ron. The real Ron. But those last couple of sentences had dispelled the notion. A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of what Ron had become.

As she looked around the neighborhood, she felt more confused than ever. Drakken and Shego had pulled off their evil scheme, Kim had been in their grasp, and yet they had dropped her off back at her own house. It was almost courteous of them. What was their angle?

Kim felt some of her strength returning – it had been seeping back by degrees during the van ride home – but she still felt like she could barely stay on her feet. She almost fell over when she was startled by the sound of the front door opening.

"Kim! You're home!"

James and Anne Possible rushed out of the door, followed closely by the tweebs, and they gathered around Kim as they hugged her in a warm embrace. She looked at her family, and again - just for a moment - she was almost fooled. She wanted to believe everything was the same, but something in their expressions felt wrong. They were almost her family.

Almost.

Her mother led her by the hand as they passed into the house.

"Come inside, Kim! We have so much to talk about!"

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Hope everybody liked the first chapter. I wanted to try something a little different than anything I've written so far, so I'm interested in seeing what people think. It is sci-fi / action but there will be humor as well - however, it will be a little darker than my stories usually are, although not as depressing as _Beyond the Stone_. Thanks!_


	2. Running in Place

**Running in Place**

XX

Kim sat in her living room and watched the television alone. Her family was in the house, but there was nothing left to say. Images of chaos and confusion flickered across the screen as Kim watched with growing dread. Drakken's brainwashing formula was spreading much faster than she had expected, and he hadn't been lying about sending weather machines up in various parts of the world. At this rate, she was surprised that the news station was still broadcasting.

The volume was turned down low, but Kim didn't know why she bothered. Did she want to avoid catching her family's attention? The whole situation was almost too strange to comprehend. Were they her enemies now? Kim wondered if they were going to spy on her now that they were under the influence of Drakken's brainwashing formula; maybe they wouldn't even let her leave the house. She didn't know why Shego had dumped her back at her house in the first place.

Kim focused her hearing over the dull drone of the newscaster and listened to her mother preparing dinner in the kitchen. When they had welcomed her home, things seemed almost normal. The tweebs ran around and wreaked havoc in the living room for a while before being sent upstairs by her father, and then her mother had started cooking. The only difference was that they had all spent a few minutes talking about how wonderful it was that Drakken and Shego would soon be in charge of things.

"Dinner's almost ready, dear!" her mother called from the kitchen.

The news program switched to a live feed of a city street in which a mass of people were converging on a much smaller group of about a dozen people wearing gas masks or holding cloth to their faces. Kim wondered how they had avoided becoming brainwashed, since her own gas mask had failed to protect her. Maybe it had just been defective. Kim watched as the larger mass of people, who she assumed were all brainwashed converts to Drakken and Shego's evil scheme, whatever that was, easily overpowered the smaller group.

"As of now," the newscaster said, "I am receiving word that martial law has been declared. We do not know the details of this epidemic yet, but all citizens are advised to stay inside their houses until further notice, keep windows and doors closed, and avoid breathing air in stormy areas."

Despite the dire situation, Kim couldn't help but smirk at the futility of the newscaster's last comment.

The word had gotten out too late, and it looked like the majority of the world's population was caught unprepared. She had checked the local news earlier and only gotten a test pattern, so Middleton was probably completely gone. Kim wondered why the newscaster she was watching now was not wearing a gas mask. Neither were a number of station workers who darted wildly back and forth behind him. The newsroom looked like it was in a chaotic state. She supposed there weren't any gas masks to go around on such short notice; it wasn't exactly something that most people kept around just in case they needed it, after all.

"Kim, dinner's ready! I know the news is very exciting right now, what with all the positive world changes going on, but you don't want your brain loaf to get cold, do you?"

Anne Possible's question got no reply. As Kim watched the news, her earlier train of thought came chugging back as she considered her options. Wade hadn't gotten the word out, and Kim herself had certainly been duped, but others might have caught on to what was happening in time. There was one place Kim might still be able to find allies. Not ideal allies, but Kim didn't have the luxury of being choosy anymore. Global Justice might be her last chance.

She flipped off the television and got up from the couch. The smell of Anne's brain loaf wafted through the kitchen as Kim walked past it on her way to the front door. Normally it was one of her favorite smells, but something about her situation made the once pleasant odor take on a sinister quality.

"Kim, where are you going?" asked her mother

"Out."

"When will you be back?"

"Just as soon as I get this sitch taken care of."

XX

Kim wasn't sure what she had been expecting when she left her house, but this wasn't it.

Downtown Middleton looked the same as it always did. Streetlights illuminated storefront windows, and Kim could see shoppers perusing the shelves inside. The air smelled fresh from the recent rainstorm, and the roads were still slick. Streams of water tumbled past her down the roadside gutters and into drains. Pedestrians passed on the sidewalk just outside of the alley in which she was hiding as she tried to stay out of view on the way to her destination. Cars drove back and forth down the street, although Middleton was never very busy in the evenings. Nothing looked amiss.

At least, not at first glance. If Kim looked closely, she felt like something was wrong with the scene in front of her. People seemed almost a little too serene, a little too easygoing as they went about their evening. No one seemed to be frowning, no one was in a bad mood. When Kim tried to catch snippets of conversation from people who passed by outside of her hiding place, she was almost sure she kept hearing the names 'Shego' and 'Drakken' uttered in enthusiastic tones. Kim knew it was not just her imagination.

Unable to stay in hiding any longer, Kim stepped out of the alley and walked to the center of the sidewalk. She knew she was standing on a hidden Global Justice entry tube, and she hoped that they would be tracking her, considering current circumstances. That was assuming they were still operational at all. Kim wished she could contact them more easily without Wade, or that she could at least use a front door, but she supposed Global Justice was not a front door kind of organization.

Not that it mattered – she did not have to wait long before the sidewalk opened up. Kim dropped in a free fall down a sort of plastic tube, straight into Middleton's secret depths, as the trap door closed above her. After a moment, some kind of cushioning force slowed her down seconds before reaching the bottom of the tube. She hit the floor, the impact still a bit hard despite the invisible cushioning.

As Kim waited in the tube, she was able to look out of its transparent front and see the Global Justice's underground facility. There were several figures standing and watching her, but she could not yet tell whether they were brainwashed or not. Kim jumped in surprise as several jets of cloudy gas suddenly filled the tube around her. For a moment she thought they were attempting to brainwash her, but after the gas gradually cleared from the tube, the door opened up with a ding.

_Subject sterilized_, came a detached female voice from overhead.

"Kim Possible!"

Dr. Director stepped forward and motioned for Kim to follow her. Several Global Justice operatives ran by, obviously in a hurry, almost knocking the two of them over. A harried voice issued updates and warnings over a loudspeaker system; all in all, the facility looked like it had its hands full. Kim was glad to see it so busy – it meant things were still functioning.

"So what's the sitch?" Kim asked.

Dr. Director led her through a pair of automatic doors into the control room. "You probably know about as much as we do at the moment. Where's Ron Stoppable?"

"Brainwashed. So is my family. It looked like Middleton was completely taken over when I was on the way here – I didn't know where else to go, so I came here figuring if anybody was left it would be you guys."

The two of them stopped in front of a railing separating a raised level from the rest of the control room. Kim followed Dr. Director's gaze to a massive overhanging screen that displayed shifting sets of maps. A number of red translucent areas were spread across the maps, some of which displayed continents, and one of which displayed a world map. Kim had the impression that the red coloring represented the extent of Drakken's brainwashing formula taking over the globe. Things did not look good.

"Any good news, Agent Du?"

Will Du, who had been looking over some readouts from a nearby terminal, shook his head. "No breakthroughs on the nature of the Drakken's formula yet. India branch stopped responding a few minutes ago."

Dr. Director sighed and looked over the readouts that Will Du handed her.

"We have the circulation system completely internalized here," she explained with a vague wave to their surroundings. "No air comes in from outside without being heavily filtered. Unfortunately, we lost a number of our operatives who were outside the facility before we could issue an emergency alert, but we've got things contained for now at least."

Kim didn't have the heart to tell Dr. Director that her filtration system might not be enough – but then again, seeing as the facility was still operational, Kim wondered if maybe it was more effective than the average gas mask. Maybe they _were_ safe in the underground facility.

Dr. Director pressed a few commands into a touch terminal in front of her, and the maps on the large screen shifted. Kim didn't know what to make of them, but Dr. Director pointed to a few colored dots as she explained what Kim was looking at.

"Those are Global Justice facilities located around the world. We've been trying to maintain contact and organize some kind of strategy to counter the spread of this epidemic, but we barely had any time to mobilize when we caught wind of Drakken's plan. We've lost contact with most our bases. Several of them are fighting off invasions at this very moment."

She stopped and glanced at Kim, her one good eye looking over the teen. "Wait a moment, how did you get in here from outside without being brainwashed? I didn't see you wearing any protective gear or filtration masks when you came in."

"It's kind of a long story," said Kim, "but I think Drakken and Shego injected me with something that blocks the brainwashing formula from taking effect."

Dr. Director frowned and punched in a few keys on a nearby terminal.

"My God... the bioscan done when you arrived in the transport tube says there were no contaminants detected on you, even before you were sterilized! Something must have prevented the formula from taking hold on you." Not wanting to waste another moment, she took Kim by the arm.

"Agent Du, follow us!" she ordered.

The trio passed through the control room and walked towards another pair of electronic doors. A number of Hazmat suits were set up alongside the door on a mobile rack; Dr. Director and Will Du each took one from the rack and began to put them on. Kim was about to pick her own suit out, but Dr. Director waved her off, indicating there was no need. After they finished dressing, Dr. Director punched a code into a numeric keypad set into the wall, and the doors opened. They stepped inside what looked like a sterilization chamber.

_Please wait_, spoke the pleasant female voice Kim had heard earlier.

After a moment, the chamber was filled with a gaseous substance that came hissing out of the walls. Kim's vision clouded momentarily as the gas filled the room.

_Sterilization complete._

A second set of doors slid open as the gas cleared, revealing what looked like a scientific laboratory. Numerous Global Justice scientists, all in Hazmat suits, were inspecting test tubes and microscopes set up on various laboratory tables. In one corner of the room, Kim noticed a largely transparent column which rose from floor to ceiling, studded with the occasional metal protrusion and electronic interface. Inside the column stood a person in civilian clothing, looking a bit bored.

"Over here," said Dr. Director. She led Kim to one of the busy-looking scientists as Will Du trailed behind them. "Dr. Haytham," she addressed the scientist, "this young lady was injected with some kind of immunity to the brainwashing formula."

"I think Drakken called it MC Ultra," Kim added.

Dr. Haytham, who had been writing on a notepad with a ballpoint pen, place the pen in his shirt pocket and gave Kim his attention.

"Is that right? I was wondering why she was let inside this room without a suit."

Haytham eyed Kim Possible in a clinical but friendly manner. Kim looked at the lab table behind him and noticed that it was a complete mess. The scientists were apparently just as pressed for time in finding some way to fight Drakken's formula as the other Global Justice agents were in fighting back the hordes of brainwashed masses. However, Haytham's demeanor – at least, from what Kim could tell of his body language and his expression behind the faceplate of the Hazmat suit - seemed to be more laid back than the other scientists in the room, and he looked at Kim with a reassuring smile as he reached towards a tray on the table and picked up a needle.

"Do you mind if I take a blood sample?" he asked.

Kim really hadn't enjoyed her last experience with a needle, but she nodded, extending her arm to Haytham. He drew a sample and placed a droplet onto a slide, which he placed under a microscope and began to inspect.

"You said Drakken and Shego gave you the resistance?"

"Yeah. Drakken said it was Shego's idea. And they just dropped me off at my house after capturing me, too. I can't figure it out."

Dr. Director was pondering Kim's response when an alarm klaxon suddenly blared through the lab.

_Warning_, announced the same soothing voice that had spoken inside of the sterilization chamber. _Unauthorized tube access in entrances 3, 5, and 7._

Dr. Director spoke into a headset fixed inside the head of her Hazmat suit as the scientists began to look around nervously. Kim noticed that even Will Du seemed shocked from the intercom announcement, his normally taciturn expression replaced by a worried look.

"They got in somehow," Dr. Director said as she listened to the report from the command room through her suit headset. "They're coming in from multiple entrances! I don't understand, this place was sealed off – how could they have broken in without anyone giving them access?"

Kim understood Dr. Director's incredulity – Global Justice was a well hidden organization, after all – but a sinking feeling took hold of her as she thought about what could have happened. Kim only knew of one person who could possibly break through Global Justice's security.

"Wade," she said. "Wade is brainwashed. If anyone could have done it, it's him."

The alarm klaxons continued to blare as some of the scientists began emergency evacuation preparations. Dr. Director, however, was not yet prepared to leave.

"Dr. Haytham."

"Yes?"

"Take the blood sample and use it on our test subject in the isolation chamber."

Haytham looked over at the glass column that Kim had noticed upon entering the laboratory. The man in civilian clothing trapped inside was looking a little less bored now that the laboratory was in chaos, but he still seemed to have a certain indifferent air about him. Kim realized that he must be a brainwashed test subject taken from outside the facility.

"Are you sure, Dr. Director? I mean, this is a very impromptu experiment to be-"

"I'm sure, Haytham. We don't have any time, and if we have to evacuate these facilities, we might not have another chance. We've got to find out if there is some way we can create something from Kim Possible's blood to negate Drakken's brainwashing formula."

Dr, Haytham nodded and picked up the shot containing the remainder of Kim's blood sample. The group approached the glass chamber that held the brainwashed man as the alarms continued blaring.

Kim was a little surprised at the behavior of the Global Justice members around her: Will Du was unusually tense, a surprising sight for someone normally so reserved, while Dr. Director seemed calm and collected. Kim had to give her some credit; except on the occasions when Kim had seen Dr. Director face her brother, she was fairly collected in sticky situations. Haytham also appeared to be as cool as a cucumber, considering the situation they were in.

Dr.. Haytham injected the needle into an aperture connected to the side of the glass column. Inside the column, Kim noticed several tubes were connected to various places on the man's arm. One of the tubes turned red as Kim's blood sample passed through it. The man watched with a bemused expression as the blood entered his body. Something about the whole situation unsettled Kim; she wondered what kinds of things Global Justice did in the laboratory when there _wasn't_ a worldwide brainwashing outbreak.

Minutes passed as Dr. Haytham looked over figures that flashed past a computer screen attached to the side of the isolation chamber. Most of the other scientists had already left the laboratory, and Dr. Director was beginning to look impatient.

"Well?" she asked. "Why is this taking so long? Any luck?"

Dr. Haytham shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I'm not reading any changes at all. Whatever immunity the young lady has, it doesn't look like it can be passed to someone with a simple shot. I'd need much more time to analyze the-"

Their conversation was interrupted by Will Du, who had been listening to the headset inside his Hazmat suit. "Dr. Director," he said, "they're approaching the control room."

"Alright, we're out of time. We need to evacuate, now."

The group left the brainwashed man in the glass column behind, ignoring his very friendly requests to be let out, and returned to the sterilization chamber. After they were doused with the white gas, the second pair of doors opened to reveal a scene of chaos. The control room had already been infiltrated. Groups of Global Justice agents had turned over the few tables that weren't built into the floor to create makeshift barriers and were using stun guns to knock back their attackers, but Kim could see it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed. Several hallways led away from the control room, including the one through which Kim had first arrived, and the doors to each hallway were wide open. Probably disabled by Wade.

Scores of brainwashed people were approaching the control room from each hall. Kim thought the sight of them was particularly disturbing, because they didn't seem to be moving very quickly, and most of them had a very pleasant demeanor. It was as if they were stopping by for a chat and a bite to eat. She could see that they were piling up farther down the hall, however, probably pouring in by the hundreds from outside, and some of them had already begun to clamber over the makeshift barriers as Global Justice agents drew back.

"The good news," said Dr. Director, "is it looks like proximity to an infected person is probably not enough to contaminate you in itself. Otherwise those agents would already be taken over just from standing near a brainwashed person as they breathed out."

"What's the bad news?" asked Dr. Haytham. Kim found the tone of his question a little strange, although she couldn't put her finger on why.

Dr. Director pointed to a Global Justice agent who had been knocked over by several of the brainwashed intruders. One of them pinned the agent's arms to the ground and coughed into his face several times. The agent flinched, but after a second, he got back up and joined his attackers, wearing the same serene expression. Kim shuddered.

"It looks like it can be transferred through body fluids."

_Warning_, spoke the intercom voice. C_ontaminants detected inside the facility._

"Wonderful," said Dr. Director.

As if in response to her despairing comment, a clicking sound echoed above their heads, and the sprinkler system sprang into life. There were no fires nearby; Kim wondered why the sprinklers would go off. Was it some kind of response to the contaminants? Just Wade messing with the system for some reason? The sprinklers rained down on the room as the battle raged on, and Kim noticed a bizarre sight. Several of the brainwashed invaders began to cough and spit around themselves. Before she could think about it much, however, Dr. Director spoke up.

"Alright, everyone listen! We have to-"

Kim jumped back in surprise as Dr. Director stopped speaking abruptly, looking down in shock at a ballpoint pen which had punctured her Hazmat suit and gone into her arm. The pen was being held by Dr. Haytham. He released the pen, which he had pulled from his shirt pocket, and stepped back with a smile. It took Kim a moment to figure it out, but as she stared at Haytham's half-opened Hazmat suit and wet hair, she realized what had happened. Why had Haytham taken his suit off? He must have already gotten brainwashed.

There was no time to find out. She pulled herself together and knocked Dr. Haytham unconscious with a powerful kick, but it was too late. Betty pulled the pen from her suit and looked at its bloody tip, and after a moment, the look of shock behind her faceplate changed into a smile.

"Kim, there's no point in fighting," she said softly.

Kim's flying kick begged to differ.

The newly-brainwashed Dr. Director regained her footing and fought back against Kim, who found herself glad that she hadn't put on a restrictive Hazmat suit. Will Du, still in his own suit, ran to a nearby door and punched a code into its adjacent keypad. The door opened, revealing a long, narrow tunnel-like passage that led away from the control room. A strip of neon lighting along the passage's ceiling provided a dim light as it sloped gently upwards.

"In here!" Du yelled.

A couple of uncontaminated Global Justice agents nearest to Kim and Will Du retreated towards the open door as they knocked back brainwashed enemies with energy blasts from their stun guns. Kim took up the rear after flooring Dr. Director with a well-placed kick. Agent Du let her pass and closed the door to the tunnel again, entering another code that locked it from the inside. They had left several agents deeper in the control room who were still grappling with the invaders, but there was no way to save them now.

"Follow me," said Agent Du to Kim and the two other agents as they began to walk down the tunnel. "There's a Global Justice jet in a hangar at the end of this tunnel. We'll have to use that to escape."

"Where are we gonna go?" asked Kim.

"Anywhere but here."

XX

Drakken cackled as he stood and watched the bank of monitors in front of him. Numerous scenes of chaos and destruction were occurring around the globe, but he had been paying particular attention to several monitors which displayed the progress inside Global Justice's Middleton base. Haytham's action had been the icing on top of the cake. Drakken watched as Dr. Director peered up at a G.J. security camera that was transmitting the image to Drakken's lair and waved happily. Drakken waved back, even though she couldn't see him.

"This is kinda fun," Shego said, a little grudgingly.

"Isn't it, Shego?"

"Yep. I guess Dr. Haytham there should have been more careful about handling that brainwashed guy they took into the facility earlier."

"Quite right. It's always nice having someone on the inside. And I must admit, it is amusing to see Kim Possible as your helpless plaything, Shego. I was worried about her teaming up with Global Justice, but clearly there is nothing to be afraid of. She must be getting a little stressed by now. My plan is simply ingenious, if I do say so myself!"

"You've said so yourself a few times now, Doctor D."

Drakken was so overtaken with childlike glee at his scheme's wild success that he did not notice Shego's mockery. "Of course, it was quite helpful that Global Justice is so reliant on their gadgetry and technology."

Shego thought there was something amusingly hypocritical in such a statement coming from Drakken, but she didn't say anything.

"They put far too much faith in their sterilization procedures not being compromised," continued Drakken, "Letting Dr. Haytham work in that lab for hours. It would have been a bit more difficult to infiltrate them if their transport tube entrances sterilized anyone who came down carrying MC Ultra. Not to mention if we hadn't been able to hack into their entry codes in the first place." He extended a small, gloved hand down to the desk chair beside him and patted its occupant on the back. "I couldn't have done it without you," he told the boy in the chair.

Wade looked up at his leader with a smile.

"I can't take all the credit – it's not too hard to figure out all their systems when you have dozens of converted agents feeding you information. Still, it was my pleasure."

Drakken felt a tear threaten to fall. He removed a glove and wiped his eye gingerly.

"Like the son I never had!"

"Okay, okay, enough with the sappy stuff." Shego pointed to another monitor, which was showing an image of a sleek jet aircraft parked inside a hangar. "Are we gonna be able to track that thing?" she asked.

"Certainly."

While they were staring at the monitor, a group of people entered the hangar and raced onto the jet. One was still wearing a Hazmat suit, and another figure had a head of gorgeous red hair. Shego loved her jet black locks, but she had to admit that Kim's hair could give hers a run for its money.

Shego's lips curled into a smile as the jet powered up and the hangar door opened. Drakken and Wade hadn't been able to pinpoint the hangar's location as quickly as the other entrances to the facility, Wade's talents notwithstanding, and so there were no brainwashed people waiting to stop the jet from taking off. But it didn't matter. They had nowhere to go. Shego was enjoying this even more than she would admit to herself. She had never had the luxury of taking such a risk with Kim in the past, but as soon as it had become obvious that Drakken's plan was a step above the usual, she had been unable to resist a new approach to her teen foe.

Kim Possible would learn her lesson the hard way.


	3. Out of Options

**Out of Options**

XX

A bad dream faded away as Kim awoke, but reality was not much of an improvement. She got up from her cot and looked around the bunker in which she had been sleeping. Will Du and the other agents were already up, seated around a table and listening to a shortwave radio while they ate some breakfast rations. Kim stretched her limbs out for a moment before joining them.

"What's that?" she asked, pointing to an electronic device that was attached to the radio through a cable.

"Audio decryptor," said one of the agents at the table.

Kim looked around at their surroundings. Although the bunker was well-lit, there were no windows – it was situated underground with walls of thick concrete. The bunker came stocked with food and water, weapons, medicine, and various other supplies. Will had told her that the bunker also had a filtered internal air system, and that Global Justice had a number of bunkers and safe houses scattered across the country for just such emergencies.

One of the other agents offered Kim a package. "Vacuum-packed scrambled egg substitute?"

Kim grimaced, but took the package. She had to eat something.

"We're listening for anything coming from other Global Justice agents who might be hiding out like us," explained Will Du after noticing Kim's stare while he fiddled with the radio. "Protocol in this kind of situation is to establish contact with remaining agents and consolidate our forces. We should be safe here for now, but we need to find someplace to go where we can actually start fighting back."

"Preaching to the choir," said Kim.

Early that morning, before the sun had come up, Kim and the G.J. agents had left the Middleton facility's hangar in their jet and eventually passed over the Rockies towards the west coast. Will Du had set the jet on autopilot and the group had parachuted out an hour or two before they reached the bunker's location, hoping the jet's path would mislead anyone who was tracking them. It would eventually crash into the Pacific, but until then, it would be a good cover for their true location. They had walked the rest of the way – fortunately, the bunker was not in a location with a lot of human habitation. An all-terrain vehicle was hidden in a rocky enclosure above their bunker for when they needed to leave, but for now, they were as safe as they could be.

"I'm guessing we have no idea if any other Global Justice branches are still operating," Kim said.

Will Du nodded. "A couple branches hadn't been compromised yet when our branch was infiltrated, and a few more were in the process of being attacked, but I did not get a chance to check their status again before we had to evacuate." He motioned to a computer terminal at the far end of the bunker. "Our normal lines seem to be down, but we're hoping we might still be able to pick up some kind of radio communication. Failing that, perhaps the best option is to travel to G.J. France headquarters. They were still secure before we evacuated."

"How would we get to France?" Kim asked.

"We could go to one of our U.S. facilities and take another jet. Or, probably an easier option, just steal one from an airport. I am certified in piloting multiple aircraft."

"You guys like those jets, don't you?"

Will Du allowed himself a small smirk. "We're Global Justice. Travel is part of the job."

One of the other agents tapped Will on the shoulder. He and Kim turned their attention to the radio, through which a garbled message was arriving.

_Had to evacuate from ... calling for all ... _

One of the agents reached to fiddle with the radio, but Will Du smacked his hand back. He knew G.J. protocol - the message would be replayed more than once.

_Uncontaminated agents ... Los Angeles science facilities ... currently undetected ..._

"This is coming through with Class A Encryption?" asked Will Du.

"Yes sir."

Will Du got up from the table and grabbed a stun gun from one of the wall racks, his fellow agents right behind him. Something made Kim want to hold back for a moment, but the message did give her a glimmer of hope, and she did not want to be holed up in a bunker for days. She preferred her own martial arts talents to a weapon, so she did not bother with the stun guns.

Will Du was leaving his Hazmat suit behind; Kim assumed it was because the protection offered by the suit was outweighed by his near-inability to fight or run in it. They all had transparent plastic head coverings with a filtration system of some kind that they hooked to their uniforms, forming an air tight seal around their heads – Kim assumed they were fancy G.J. gas masks. Still, something was bothering Kim. She knew there was something she was not getting. She knew why she had not been brainwashed, but she couldn't understand how Will Du and the other two agents had avoided contamination so far if _MC Ultra_ had already permeated the world's atmosphere.

"You know," Kim said, "I was wearing a gas mask when I first tried foil their scheme and it didn't stop me from getting brainwashed, at least until Drakken and Shego gave me that shot." Kim was bothered by the memory that it was Ron who had stabbed her with the needle, but there was no point in correcting herself to the agents. "Are you sure those are enough?"

"I'm sure," Will Du said. "This isn't some army surplus mask – it uses the same filtration system as the Hazmat suit. And we've got to work with what we have." He opened the lift that led up to the surface.

"Let's move!"

XX

Drakken looked over the obedient subjects who slaved away in front of him. The construction site rang with busy sounds as they hammered and chiseled away at a massive structure which had not even existed more than a few days ago. Drakken was pleased; everything was right on schedule.

Drakken's underground base was located below the construction site, but his subjects were building a superstructure over it that would eventually take the form of a gigantic palace. Building a palace was a bit of a change from Drakken's usual lair motif, to be sure, but what was wrong with taking a few creative liberties when you had infinite workers at your disposal? He had originally wanted to build a pyramid, but Shego had complained about the symbolism of the idea – something about pyramids being used as burial chambers. Drakken thought she was missing the point. His plan was a wild success. The world was his. In this situation, a certain amount of grandeur was called for; a run of the mill lair just wouldn't do the job. Still, they had compromised, and Drakken would build a small pyramid over one section of the opulent palace.

"Excuse me," said a man carrying a large marble block towards the beginnings of the palace. Drakken stepped aside and waved him on.

"By all means!" he said, feeling unusually magnanimous. "Excellent job so far."

"Thank you!" the man replied. "I can only hope that when this palace is finished, it will reflect even a fraction of your own excellence!"

Drakken couldn't help but blush a little at the compliment. Satisfied that things were going well, he decided to return to his original lair underneath the unfinished palace and see how Wade and Shego were doing with the Kim Possible situation. They had run into a small snag earlier when they lost track of the Global Justice jet, and Drakken had been getting himself into a bit of a fluster until Shego told him to get some sleep and let her concentrate on the problem. Now that he was awake and refreshed, he wasn't very worried – what could Kim Possible do at this point, after all?

Drakken passed more construction workers as he went deeper into the depths of his lair, along with a wide variety of henchmen donated by Jack Hench, who had been persuaded by the brainwashing formula that he didn't need their services anymore. More henchmen were arriving by the hour from around the world, but Drakken knew they could probably stave off any attacks on the lair just by the sheer number of people at their beck and call, training or no training. He reached the control room in which Shego and Wade had been working on locating Kim Possible, but noticed Shego was missing.

"Hello, Drakken," said a woman sporting a black eyepatch who had been watching the monitors with Wade.

"Ah, hello there! Dr. Director, so nice to see you've arrived."

"Glad to be here."

"Any news on Kim Possible?"

Wade looked up from his workstation and gave Drakken a thumbs up.

"Taking care of it as we speak."

XX

The science facility that had sent the signal to the bunker was located underneath Los Angeles. The ride in the all-terrain vehicle had taken a long time, and they parked it far from the outskirts of the city in order to avoid attracting attention, although Kim was already wondering how in the world they could avoid anyone seeing them. The last half hour had been spent walking towards the city, and now they were reaching a suburban area at its outskirts, in which Will Du had told Kim that the most convenient entrance to the science facility was hidden. Kim wondered how many suburban neighborhoods had underground facilities churning away in their depths as lawns were mowed and sprinkled on the surface.

They were currently sneaking through hedges and backyards in an attempt to avoid attracting attention to themselves, but now that they were in an actual neighborhood, Kim's misgivings were growing. It seemed impossible; if everyone was brainwashed, all it took was one person to see them and report to Drakken. Kim was beginning to wonder if it would be better for them to walk in plain sight like normal people and hope they didn't look out of place, instead of sneaking around.

She looked up at the sky. It was beginning to get a little cloudy. The agents were wearing their gas masks, but their uniforms were relatively plain. The more she thought about it, the more their chances seemed hopeless. The more something nagged at the back of her mind.

"This place seems pretty quiet," Kim observed. The neighborhood's silence was a little unsettling; they had seen no children playing outside, no cars driving by. It was as if everything was deserted.

"Perhaps everyone was sent to the city center, in order to work on some project for Drakken and Shego," offered Will Du.

"Maybe."

They crouched in a small copse of evergreen trees and checked their surroundings for a minute. Global Justice's science facility was only a few blocks away.

"I'm just not sure about this," Kim said. "I don't see how we can get anywhere without being seen, not to mention something about this neighborhood seems off. And I've been thinking – how do you know you can trust that message we got on the radio?"

"It was encrypted," said Will Du. "Not even your friend Wade could have known about it. Only a few people in Global Justice itself are aware of it."

"I assume Dr. Director was aware of it?"

Kim's question made Will Du pause for a moment, but he seemed determined to continue with their plan. "We took readings on the facility when we were in the jet. Their atmosphere was uncontaminated, everything seemed fine."

"Again, can't all of that be faked? We shouldn't really trust anything related to Global Justice at this point, should we? For all we know, you guys are the only agents left."

Will Du looked a little indignant at Kim's remark.

"Look, Kim, we still need to find some way of counteracting Drakken's formula, correct?"

"Yeah."

"And our best chance seems to be whatever Shego injected you with. Which means we need find someplace that has the resources we need to analyze whatever is making you immune to all this. Right now, our best bet, and our only bet, is the science facility here."

"It might be a better idea to go somewhere else and sneak in unannounced."

Will Du shook his head. "Global Justice may be on the defensive, but if we can consolidate our forces with any operatives who haven't been affected by the brainwashing formula, that is our best chance. Those are also our standing orders – consolidating our forces is G.J. protocol in this kind of situation."

"Is following orders the best idea in our situation?" Kim asked.

"We have to follow orders," said Will Du. "We need to maintain order in a chaotic situation."

Kim's incessant questioning bothered Will. She had always been a bit of a loose cannon, following her own set of rules. Will found himself faced with a terrifying situation in which he had no clear answers, and he felt that the best option was to cling to what answers he _did_ have. He needed to find more of his fellow agents, to rely on his training and leadership skills. That was how he would keep things together.

"I am in charge of this operation, and I say we stick to the plan."

Kim felt herself bristling at Du's familiar condescending tone, and she didn't feel like he had addressed her objections, but something about the situation prevented her from keeping up the argument. Maybe it was that Ron and Wade weren't by her side. Maybe it was the fact that she really had no idea what alternatives were available. Kim had been feeling off of her game ever since things had unraveled while she was inside the weather machine. She was in an unfamiliar situation. The people she had trusted most could no longer be trusted, and she was realizing that maybe she had taken for granted just how much she relied on them to watch her back. She was silent as Will Du motioned for the group to move.

Kim followed beside the agents as they left their cover of pine trees and passed quickly over an empty suburban street. No cars were in sight. She couldn't help but wonder if people were watching the group from behind their blinds and curtains, peering out from windows of the homes they could not avoid passing. As they began to reach more densely populated parts of the city's outskirts, the group paused to assess their surroundings. Kim looked up at the sky again; there were no weather machines anymore, but the sky was darkening and she heard a clap of distant thunder. Something about the sound jarred her mind, and Kim gasped out loud at a thought that struck her like lightning.

"What is it?" Will Du asked.

"The sky," Kim said. "It's going to rain soon... the formula!"

"What?"

"The formula – it's not airborne! Maybe it's spread through the air initially, but it infects people through water. That's why Drakken had all the weather machines in the air. He was creating clouds, storms, rain! If he did that, it would contaminate the world's circulatory system, get into the ocean, all the rivers and lakes and underground water – no one could drink anything without being taken over!"

Will Du looked up at the clouds hesitantly, but he was not yet convinced. "How do you know this?"

"I don't know it, but it makes sense." She remembered lying in the field when she was first brainwashed, her mission suit soaked through. "My gas mask didn't work because the formula must have been absorbed from the rain on my skin, coming through my clothes. And in the Middleton G.J. facility – the sprinkler systems turned on, and I saw some of the brainwashed people coughing and spitting. Wade must have set the sprinklers off to spread the formula faster! It even makes sense if you think about how Drakken made _MC Ultra_. He based it off his brainwashing shampoo, which contaminates people when they use it in the shower and rub it into their scalp."

The other two agents looked convinced, and Will Du was beginning to see where Kim was coming from, but at this point it was irrelevant.

"Even if that's true," he said, "we're closer to the science facility entrance now than we are to the bunker. It would take hours to go back. We have to keep moving." Will Du pointed to an alley a number of yards away. "There. We should have some cover, and the entrance to the science facility is just beyond it."

Kim looked at the agents as they took the lead in dashing across a patch of open ground towards the alley. Their gas masks might be helpful, but their uniforms were just normal fabric, like hers. It would not prevent them from getting wet. She began to realize she had been too eager to get out of the bunker and take action – they had not planned long enough, and she had been so off-balance without Wade and Ron that she had been too willing to take cues from Will Du. She felt a rising urge to flee, somewhere. Anywhere.

As the group entered the alley, Kim thought she could hear a faint mechanical sound in the distance. It almost sounded like it was drawing closer, but by the time she started paying attention to it, they were already in the alley, where the sounds of window-mounted air conditioners connected to the apartments above them drowned out any other noise.

The group began to make their way between the closely packed building walls. The gray, muddy sky above them, coupled with the shadows of the buildings overlooking their narrow path, made it seem like night had already fallen in the alley. Kim and the agents were halfway through when they stopped abruptly. At the far end of the passage, a group of dark figures had appeared from around the corner. Their exit was blocked.

"Stun guns at the ready, men."

Will Du and the other agents took careful steps closer to the figures at the alley's exit, who were standing in place. They were quite burly. As Kim began to make out their features, she grew certain they were some kind of henchmen. She turned around, looking back at the entrance to the alley through which they had just entered. A dark shadow passed over the open ground outside the alley, and a shape descended from above.

Shego's hovercraft.

Kim cursed as the agents gathered closer to one another, realizing they had been trapped. Will Du tried a couple of nearby doors along the alley walls, but they were locked. Kim thought she could hear whispers coming from inside the buildings, faint movement from inside a darkened window nearby. Maybe the neighborhood had not been as quiet as Kim had thought. Maybe they had been watched by unseen eyes as soon as they had left their all-terrain vehicle. Maybe even before that - there was no way to know.

The henchmen on one end of the alley drew closer, and Shego stepped out of her hovercraft and approached from the other. A green, otherworldly light pulsed along the narrow walls as her hands lit into flame.

"Hi again, Princess. I'm afraid I already visited the science facility earlier, but it was nice of you guys to take my invitation. I hope you came to play."

Kim mentally kicked herself for not paying more attention to her gut instincts. She heard a crackle of energy from behind her as one of the Global Justice agents fired a first shot at the henchmen, and Kim took the opportunity to attack Shego herself. She vaulted off an alley wall and came at her foe from an angle, catching her off guard, but Shego was quick to recover. Raven-black hair swinging wildly, she cartwheeled backwards and gave Kim a vicious swipe with her claws as her teen foe tried to pursue her.

Kim and Shego traded several more punches, neither one able to gain the upper hand. Kim felt herself energized by rage. Why had Shego let her go if she was just going to capture her again? Had Shego been watching her the whole time? Kim felt like she was being used, just like a toy. Her anger drove her to come at Shego more viciously, and Shego was beginning to fall back until she suddenly held up her hands, extinguishing the flames. She pointed over Kim's shoulder with a sneer.

"Too late!"

Kim turned around. The two Global Justice agents had slipped past the henchmen, running out of the alley. _Cowards_, Kim thought. Will Du himself was subdued by several henchmen, one of whom was about to pull off his gas mask. Before he did, however, a burst of thunder shouted above their heads, much closer than the last time Kim had heard it. Shego glanced up at the darkening sky and motioned for the henchmen to stop.

Kim looked up as well, and did not have to wait long before the gray clouds burst into another rattle of thunder. A lightning bolt flashed brightly, its imprint burned in Kim's vision after she blinked. She blinked again as she felt the first drops fall on her face, and she looked down again into the alley at Will Du. Kim could not see his features well through the gas mask, but she could read his body language. His blustering authoritativeness had been replaced by tired resignation. He knew he had lost. Kim almost felt sorry for him.

The rain came down heavier, thick dark spots spreading on Will Du's uniform. It was only seconds before he shook himself free of the henchmen, who willingly let him go. Will straightened himself out and pulled his gas mask off, smiling calmly.

"New plan, Kim. Join us."

Shego cackled as he approached Kim, surrounded by henchmen.

"Leave Kim alone," she said. "she's got enough to worry about. Everybody come with me!"

Kim felt herself knocked to the ground, stunned by a blast from Will Du's weapon. Her enemies passed over her as she struggled to pick herself up from the wet grime of the alley. Shego waved back at Kim as her new subjects joined her on her hovercraft.

As the storm began to take shape in the sky above her, peppering her face with drops of rain, Kim looked back at the end of the alley where the henchmen had passed her, and two figures approached, returning to the alley: the two agents who had tried to run. Apparently, they had not found cover before the rain started to fall. They passed Kim and joined the rest of their brainwashed companions on Shego's hovercraft.

"I'm afraid we can't stay, Kimmie. I'd offer you a ride home, but I'm sure you'd rather walk. It's been fun!"

The hovercraft left the ground as Kim got up, still a little woozy from the effect of the stun gun. "What do you want, Shego?" she screamed up at her enemy. "Why do you keep letting me go? Tell me!"

Shego shrugged as she leaned over the craft and grinned at her foe.

"I just like to see you squirm!"

The hovercraft climbed higher into the air, traveling into the distance as the rain poured down harder. Kim's hair drooped down and plastered itself to her face and neck as she left the alley and went back into the suburbs. She was in no hurry. She had no ideas left. Nowhere to go, no one to ask for help. Maybe it was time to go home.

XX

It was evening by the time Shego returned to base. As she walked onto the construction site, she looked up in awe at the rapidly rising walls that were taking shape over their underground lair. Even the pyramid that Drakken had insisted be placed over one section of the palace grounds was taking shape. She still thought the symbolism was a little awkward, but maybe Drakken had a point about the importance of grandeur. Being in a particularly good mood, she was more willing than usual to give Drakken the benefit of the doubt. The look on Kim's face as she watched Shego's hovercraft leaving with her former allies had been, well – delicious. Shego regretted not having taken a camera with her.

A lift took Shego and her subordinates down to the lair's control center. "I'm very excited to be working under your leadership," said Will Du as he stood stiffly beside her.

"Yeah, that's great," said Shego. "I figure you Global Justice grunts must be used to taking orders, regardless of who it's from, so I'm sure it won't be very different. And hey, your old boss is here too. It'll be just like normal for you."

The lift reached the bottom floor of the lair, and the door opened up to reveal Drakken, Wade, and Dr. Director as they stood among a number of other flunkies and assorted brainwashed henchmen. The welcoming committee broke into a slow clap as Shego stepped off the lift.

"Wonderful, Shego!" said Drakken. "We saw the whole thing!"

"Couldn't have done it without Dr. Director's fake encrypted signal idea," Shego had to admit. "If we hadn't lured them out of their hiding place, who knows when we would have found them."

"Soon enough, I'm sure," Dr. Director said. "It's not like they had anyplace to go."

"True."

Shego was considering whether or not a long bubble bath would be a good way to reward herself for psychologically torturing her teen foe when she noticed a familiar group of people standing awkwardly to the side. They were not in civilian, henchmen, or Global Justice uniforms; instead, they wore colorful skin-tight outfits of blue, red, and purple.

Shego nodded at them. She was wondering when her family would drop by for a visit.

"I haven't seen you in a long time, little sister," said Hego as he shook Shego's hand. His brothers each took their own handshake in turn.

"We always thought you were the most level-headed of the group," said Mego. The twins nodded their heads in agreement. "It was a shame to see you leave, but fortunately we've all come around and seen the error of our ways. With you and Drakken in charge, Team Go will achieve more than it ever has before!"

"Um, let's not call it Team Go," said Shego. "It's just you guys, working for me."

"Of course! That's a great idea, Shego."

"Say - I've been out working hard all day, and I was thinking about how nice it would be to have a warm bubble bath. Hego, would you mind drawing the water for me and getting the bubbles ready? It's just down the hall and to the left there," she said as she pointed in the direction of the lair's bathroom.

"I'd love to, sister!"

"And you guys," she said as she looked at her other brothers, "Maybe you could fetch me a stereo and set it up in the bathroom, and one of you could mix me a piña colada?"

"You got it!" said the Wegos in unison.

Shego walked over to the bank of control room monitors and dropped into a desk chair for a moment, giving it a few spins just for the heck of it. On one monitor, Shego was satisfied to see her teen foe trudging down a road in the dim evening light, looking very forlorn. Apparently Kim was in such a bad mood that she wasn't bothering to hitch a ride, or even grab a bicycle. Not that a goody-two-shoes like Kim would steal a bicycle, Shego snickered.

"Oh sister, your bath is ready!" Hego called.

Shego leaned back in the desk chair and wrapped her hands behind her head with a contented sigh. All the back-patting when she had returned was a little much, perhaps, but Shego was in a rare mood. Her stupid siblings were finally acknowledging her as their superior, and Kim was getting her just desserts. Never before had her victory been so complete. This was the way life should be.

XX

It had taken a long time to get back, but she was home.

Kim sat in her dark living room and watched the television, trying to see if she could glean anything from the news. Her family was probably watching her, but she didn't know where else she could go, other than hiding in some hole or abandoned building. She needed to rest. And at home, at least she had some vague sense of former comfort.

The television's glow burned itself into her retinas, since she had not bothered to turn any other lights on in the room. Kim recognized the newscaster as the same one who had been reporting on the worldwide chaos last time she had been watching the news, but this time he did not seem flustered. Nor was there anyone running wildly to and fro behind him. The news station seemed to be running normally, and the newscaster had a pleasant smile on his face.

"In other news," he continued, "the Senate passed its two-thirds requirement to impeach the president, a whopping 100% of Senators voting in favor of impeachment. Then, immediately after receiving a brief phone call from our lord and leader Drakken and his lovely co-ruler Shego, both houses of Congress proposed and ratified a new Constitutional amendment. Amendment Twenty Eight reads: 'Disregard all law previous to this amendment, obey Drakken and Shego, also Drakken rocks.' The vote was an unprecedented bipartisan commitment between Democrats and Republicans."

"The United Kingdom's Parliament dissolved itself minutes after hearing America's decision, as well as voting to change its form of government to an Unconstitutional Drakkenarchy."

The reporter held a hand up to his earpiece as he listened to some breaking news. "And I've just gotten word that other governments across the world are now following their example. Myanmar's military junta has voluntarily laid down its arms, announcing that control by force is obsolete compared to being united in the love of Drakken and Shego. The people of Canada voted to voluntarily rename their country Drakkanada. No word yet on the developments in North Korea, where apparently the entire population of the country has disappeared into what appear to be miles of underground tunnels and bunkers."

"Drakken and Shego have been nominated by the United Nations as supreme rulers of the universe, which of course was a completely unnecessary vote by the U.N. since it disbanded itself hours ago, but it was a ceremonial thing, for the sake of our dear leaders." The newscaster threw his papers aside in a burst of enthusiasm and pumped his fist in the air. "They _are_ the law!"

James Possible poked his head into the living room.

"Isn't it wonderful news, Kimmie-cub?"

"Sure, dad."

James smiled as he stood beside the couch and looked down at his daughter.

"You have school tomorrow, don't you? Better get some sleep."

"Sure."

Her father left as Kim watched the newscaster droning on about the brave new world they had entered. Kim felt sick to her stomach. Global Justice was gone, the government was gone. She tried to think of her next move, but she felt the doors closing on her options one by one. She got up and turned the television off. Her father, insofar as he was her father anymore, was right. She needed sleep more than anything else at the moment, but she was not looking forward to tomorrow.

XX

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_**Notes** - The reference to the population of North Korea going underground is taken from - er, I mean, an homage to - a chapter in Max Brook's _World War Z_, which is a cool book about how people across the world react to a zombie apocalypse. I thought his idea of North Korea pretty much shutting itself off completely was creepy, and he had some cool passages about how perhaps their containment plan had failed and millions of zombies were roaming in the tunnels beneath the country, waiting for someone to enter. So anyway, I threw a reference to that in here for the heck of it._

_Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)_


	4. The New Order

**The New Order**

XX

The gates of Yamanouchi were wide open. Kim stepped into the courtyard and noticed that the trees around the entrance were festooned with green and blue ribbons tied to their branches. The sight of the ribbons was all it took to tell her that she had arrived at another dead end.

"Kim Possible," said Yori as she emerged from the pagoda on the far end of the courtyard and met Kim with a polite bow. "We are honored to have you as our guest."

Kim followed silently behind Yori and noticed a group of students across the courtyard, sitting cross-legged and meditating beside one of the stone walls surrounding the complex. Kim felt a sense of curiosity at seeing the school for the first time, even though she had met Yori and Sensei already. Yamanouchi was a part of Ron's life that Kim had not been around to see. Not a big part, but after having known each other for so long, there were very few things in their lives that Ron and Kim had not shared with each other.

The excitement of seeing Yamanouchi for the first time was tempered with the knowledge that it was not really the same anymore. Like everything else, it was now the property of the two villains that blocked Kim at every step without even having to do anything.

Yori carried herself with the same calm poise that Kim remembered from the last time she had met the young ninja, and the school seemed to share that peacefulness. Kim imagined the school was probably not very different than it was when Ron had been there – the sense of quiet serenity surrounding her seemed to match the school's austere architecture and layout - but the atmosphere of the place was tainted with what ran under the surface. As if things at Yamanouchi were not so much peaceful as they were pacified.

"Please join us inside," Yori said as they approached the pagoda's entrance. "We have been expecting you."

The misty peaks of distant crags gave way to paper walls and polished wood. More students sat inside the pagoda, also meditating, but Yori led Kim through the ground floor towards the back of the building. She slid open a door to reveal a room that was almost bare except for a low table in its center. On either side of the table, two cross-legged figures sat on tatami mats as they looked up at Kim with welcoming smiles: Sensei and Monkey Fist.

Kim tensed, ready for a fight, but she could already tell that it was not a trap. Monkey Fist nodded but made no attempt to get up, and while Sensei rose, it was only to give his guest a bow. He motioned for Yori and Kim to join them at the table. He and Monkey Fist were drinking from delicate china tea cups decorated with cherry blossom designs. Two other cups, waiting to be filled, sat patiently beside a kettle in the center of the table.

"Welcome," said Sensei as he poured his guest a cup of tea. "Shego informed us that you would be arriving eventually. We have been told that you are still ignorant of the wonder that is our great leaders. I am disappointed, but it is Shego's choice. You are welcome to stay here as long as you like."

"It's been a long time, Kim Possible," said Monkey Fist as his teen foe sat down on a bare mat beside the table and took the cup of tea proffered by Sensei. "How has life been treating you?"

Kim ignored the question and watched a faint ghost of steam rising from the liquid inside her cup. She wondered if it contained the brainwashing formula that was running through the beautiful mountain streams and springs she had passed on the way to Yamanouchi. The tea would not effect her even if was contaminated, but even the simple act of having a drink was now an unsettling experience to Kim.

"You're probably wondering why I am here at Yamanouchi," said Monkey Fist, his voice still pleasant even though Kim was making no attempt to engage in pleasantries with him.

"Not really, Monkey Fist."

"Please, call me Monty."

"Why is that?"

Monty took a calm sip of tea before responding. "Monkey Fist is such a crass name to me now," he said. "It reminds me of all that time I spent being obsessed with simians. It's all a bit silly when I think about it. Now that Drakken and Shego have solved all of our problems, it's a little – how to put it – disrespectful, to be so focused on something other than them, don't you think?"

Sensei and Yori both nodded in agreement.

"I considered having people refer to me as Dr. Fiske, but even that seems too haughty."

Kim actually had to agree with that one, although she knew Fiske was arriving at his conclusion from a very different trail of thought.

"As I was saying," Monty continued, "I am here at Yamanouchi to make amends with my former foes. As a matter of fact, I happen to be the one who showed them the value of a world united under Drakken and Shego."

"It is true," said Yori.

"Yamanouchi was caught unprepared during the initial conversion, but Yori and Sensei here managed to escape. Drakken and Shego were busy with other things so they enlisted me to help our two friends see the light, so to speak. So here we all are, enjoying each other's company."

Kim shuddered a little as everyone around her smiled at each other in between sips of tea. Kim was surprised to find that something about her situation brought back much less unsettling memories of childhood tea parties with dolls, although Kim had more action figures. She smiled as she remembered Ron setting up the little chairs and putting Kim's Cuddle Buddies into place. Ron had agreed to take part in her tea parties as long as she didn't tell anyone else he was involved, and Kim had thought it was a fair deal.

"How is Ron Stoppable, by the way?"

Kim's memories were pierced by the sound of Monkey Fist's voice, and the pleasant tea parties of the past were forgotten as Kim's attention returned to her surroundings. The image of Ron from her childhood left her mind to be replaced by the Ron who was waiting for her at home. The way amiable way in which Monkey Fist had asked about his former arch foe was jarring.

"He's fine," Kim lied. "Same old Ron."

"Excellent. He should have stopped by as well!"

"I understand that he is already aware of Drakken and Shego's greatness," said Sensei. "It is good that I am no longer taking him down the wrong path and filling his impressionable young mind with unimportant thoughts of mystical monkey power and destiny. Those things no longer matter." Sensei's wizened features softened as he took a pensive sip of tea. "One may travel forever in a circle if there is no map to guide the way."

The table fell silent as Yori and Monty nodded appreciatively at Sensei's sage words. Kim found a bitter humor in the fact that, while Sensei was so horribly wrong, he just happened to be right about her own feelings. She had been distinctly aware of going in circles for a while now. Kim had left Middleton without telling Ron or her parents where she was going, although she had known even before she arrived at Yamanouchi that taking a plane ride to Japan would be enough to tip off Shego that she was up to something. There was no avoiding Shego's gaze. Now that she had checked Yamanouchi and found it compromised, she would be returning home again.

Another circle.

Kim looked down into her cup, which was now empty. A scattering of tea leaves lay against the cup's bottom, dark green on a glistening white circle. Kim remembered reading about tea leaves being used to predict the future – Tasseography, it was called. Maybe there was something in the tea cup about her own future. She tried to discern a pattern in the porcelain, but the gritty tea leaf residue told her nothing. Perhaps, if it was infused in the damp tea leaves, the only thing in the cup that could give Kim a hint of her future was the brainwashing formula.

XX

Drakken placed his boots up on the president's desk as he watched a television on a metal stand that had been rolled into the Oval Office. Shego was sitting in a nearby padded armchair, leafing through classified documents and letting out the occasional surprised grunt, and every once in a while an aide poked his head through the door before being impatiently waved away by Drakken. The television was playing a speech that he had given to the media earlier that day. His own visage looked back at him from the screen, standing in front of a lectern stamped with the Presidential Seal – for which Drakken had not yet thought of a good replacement - and backed by an experimental flag that Drakken had designed earlier that morning for his new world order. "My fellow citizens," said the television Drakken, "ask not what Drakken can do for you, but what you can do for Drakken!"

"Real original, Doctor D."

"Ssh!"

Shego rolled her eyes and returned to her classified document as Drakken continued to watch the speech from that morning. The two of them were not staying at the White House permanently, but Drakken had wanted to stop by to see what it felt like to sit in the president's chair, as well as make sure he was really in charge. He had made the speech in order to broadcast it across the country, even though there wasn't much of a point, but Drakken thought it would be fun to do.

It wasn't really the content of the speech that was important – people would eat up anything he told them now that they were brainwashed, after all – but rather the fact that he was finally commanding respect and attention. No longer was he a second rate supervillain, trounced by teen heroes. He was large and in charge. And, Drakken thought as he watched himself, quite a dashing figure in digital.

"You could say I speak softly and carry a big electro-stick," boasted the television Drakken.

Drakken smiled at his witticisms and glanced at Shego as she flipped through classified documents. Soon after they had arrived in Washington and walked into the White House, flunkies and toadies had swarmed them with congratulations, and even more interestingly, information.

Drakken had learned that most of the conflicts raging across the globe had died down now that everyone was brainwashed. Apparently, as a side effect of everyone being focused on serving him and Shego, people no longer had much of a reason to fight one another. World peace had not been Drakken's goal, but he found it ironic that he, a supervillain, had succeeded where endless lines of politicians, priests, and peacemakers before him had failed. A number of aides had also told him that violent crime was dropping steadily, and while it was harder to quantify in such a short period of time, racism and sexism seemed to be on the wane as well. Everyone was the same under their new leaders, after all. Pawns, living in harmony together on Drakken's worldwide chess board.

_ You're welcome, world_, he thought with a smirk.

Shego gasped again as she began to read a new document. One of their aides had brought the papers into the Oval Office at her request so she could see what kind of secrets her government had been hiding while she passed the time.

"Hey Doctor D, wanna know what's really at Area 51?"

"We already know that, Shego. Please don't remind me of the probing again."

"Oh, yeah."

Shego frowned; the incident involving Area 51 and Drakken's giant poodle had slipped her mind. Partly because she rarely saw Commodore Puddles on account of Drakken being a fairly inattentive pet owner, and partly because that whole episode of her life had been particularly bizarre and outlandish. Which was saying a lot.

"Well, alright," she said, throwing the Area 51 documents on the carpet. "I'm still trying to find out if there was a second shooter. Gimme a minute."

The recorded speech came to an end as Drakken flipped off the television. He leaned back a little in his chair with a satisfied smile and folded his arms behind his head, looking casually around the room. This was the life. "I'm still amazed they voluntarily dismantled the whole government system and put us in charge without even being brainwashed," he said.

"That's politicians for you," said Shego without looking up from her papers. "You only need to brainwash people with a spine, weirdly enough."

"What was it that boy, Wade - what did he say? Something like ten or fifteen percent of world leaders were actually brainwashed before most of the rest just fell in line of their own free will? Too easy."

Drakken had to laugh at his memories from the last couple of days, when numerous politicians had arrived at their palace, crawling out of their hiding places, often wearing gas masks, only to submit themselves to brainwashing. Even his henchmen were not that easy to control. They even had strikes sometimes.

"They go where the power is," said Shego. "Right now, we have a monopoly on power."

She looked up from the papers, getting a little bored of looking through them. There was the occasional juicy secret to be found in the stacks, but most of it was fairly dry and technical, often dealing with things Shego did not find interesting. "So what are we doing next?" she asked.

"Next?"

"Yeah, like now that there's really no chance of anyone stopping us. What's your plan now?"

Drakken looked quizzically at his sidekick – or co-ruler, he reminded himself. Shego had made it clear that she would not be subordinate in his new world order, and his former employee could be very persuasive sometimes. Now, however, she was confusing him.

"Well, the plan _is_ complete. We're in charge of everything. It's time to kick back and enjoy life a little, Shego. We've got the world at our fingertips!"

Shego supposed that he had a point. There was more than enough to do, and she was sure she'd enjoy herself with unlimited power, but she was a little surprised that Drakken did not seem to have any goals in mind beyond taking over the world. Not that it mattered very much. That was the future, and presently, Shego was getting a little bored of the White House.

"Hey, why don't we go back to the palace?"

"Sure, why not."

"You want to pass any laws or take care of any political stuff while you're here?"

"No," said Drakken. "I'm not the political or administrative type, Shego. That kind of thing really doesn't interest me. I was thinking that perhaps I would simply let most things run the way they used to, let the pencil pushers take care of the details, and we could just enjoy ourselves. I've got people reporting back to us if there are any problems."

"Sounds good to me."

Shego picked up the classified documents before she left, still idly flipping through the pages to see if she could find anything interesting between the lines of legalese. For all she knew, there could be something about Kim Possible hidden in the papers – Shego had always wondered how some nobody from a flyover state could save the world multiple times with almost supernatural martial arts abilities while maintaining a perfect academic record. She couldn't be _that_ good.

"Oooh, Doctor D," she said as she found a particularly surprising tidbit in one of the highest classification levels. "Guess what the government was doing to the naked mole rats at Smarty Mart?"

XX

Paper-thin wisps of clouds passed underneath the wing of the airliner as Kim watched out the window. Dawn was breaking over the horizon, and the air was painted in a rich palette of orange, red, blue, and white. It should have been enough to lift anyone's spirits, but Kim was returning from Yamanouchi. Yet another disappointment. Yet another dead end in her search for anyone like herself.

"Salted peanuts?" asked a flight attendant in the aisle.

"No thank you."

The attendant continued down the aisle with his snack cart and left Kim to her thoughts.

"If passengers on the left side of the plane would like to look out their windows," spoke the pilot through the plane's speaker system, "we are now passing over Drakken and Shego's magnificent Palace of Ultimate Domination! Rising over the south end of the palace, as I'm sure all passengers must know already, one can see the Pyramid of Additional Ultimate Domination."

Kim did not bother looking down at the complex. She had seen it before.

It was bad enough to visit Yamanouchi for the first time and see a shell of what it must have been while Ron had been there as an exchange student, but even worse was the fact that Shego was letting Kim make these trips in the first place. Giving her implicit permission to keep trying, like it was just a game and Kim was her plaything. She knew that there was no longer any way she could get around without someone reporting her movements back to Drakken or Shego. Ticket takers at the airport, passengers on the planes, pedestrians in the street. There was nowhere to hide. She no longer had Wade's contacts to rely on for rides – all his knowledge and information was now the property of her enemies, and the contacts themselves had long since been brainwashed. She knew that, for whatever reason, any action she took was taken only with Shego's permission.

The plane soon landed at Middleton Airport. After getting off and leaving the terminal, Kim caught a cab in the parking lot and watched as the familiar sights of her home town passed her by. Everything looked much the same as it always had, on the surface. People went about their day to day business, chatted in storefront windows, sat at bus terminals. A closer look revealed the differences. The conversations behind the storefront windows were about Drakken and Shego. The magazine covers used a predominance of green, black, and blue ink. The billboards were often painted with the same trio of colors.

The taxi dropped Kim off in front of her house, leaving her with about half an hour to grab a quick breakfast and get ready for school. Overnight missions had never been her favorite, and they were much worse now that she could always predict the outcome. She entered the kitchen, where Ron was already sitting at the breakfast table with her family.

"Hey KP!" he said. "Your mom made some totally badical scrambled eggs this morning. They were shaped like a brain!"

Anne Possible laughed and patted Ron on the back. "Nice to have you back, honey," she told Kim. "You'd better eat quickly before you end up late for school. I don't know why you're still so insistent on going on those silly missions of yours."

"Your mother has a point," James said as he stared pointedly at his daughter over the top of a newspaper. "Now that Drew Lipsky and Shego are in control, everything is the way it should be. Why fight against that? I certainly didn't – as soon as I saw a better job opportunity with those two, I quit my job on the spot!"

James' speech seemed to remind him of his job; he glanced at his watch and folded up the newspaper, surprised at the time. "Speaking of which, I'm going to be late if I don't get a move on." He gave his wife peck on the cheek and grabbed his suitcase. "Bye honey! Have fun at school, you two!"

Ron waved while Kim mechanically shoveled scrambled eggs in her mouth instead of responding. After finishing her breakfast, she ran upstairs to take a quick shower and change into a new outfit while Ron waited in the kitchen to walk with her to school. As she turned on the shower, Kim thought about her upcoming day. Middleton High School was much like the rest of Middleton: similar to what it had been like in the past, before the brainwashing, but warped and distorted when one scratched beneath the surface.

Still, it was better than being home all day.

That was the worst part of the whole situation. Kim's home, which had been her place of comfort and refuge in the past, had become a prison to her. Her family were the people most likely to report her every move to Drakken and Shego. Kim had considered hiding out soon after Drakken's takeover, but there was nowhere to hide. And even if her family was brainwashed, Kim had nothing else to hold on to. She was too afraid to leave her family and go into hiding, even if it meant being monitored a little less, so here she was.

Home sweet home.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Took a little longer to get this chapter up, but the next one will probably be up more quickly since they were both originally part of a huge chapter I decided to cut in half. I've been doing a lot of rewriting of the second half of this story because there were more things I wanted to add._

_For instance, originally I had ignored Yamanouchi just because I felt it was unrelated to what I wanted to explore in this story, and while it still doesn't play much of a role, people were mentioning Ron and the MMP in reviews which brought it to mind, and I decided it seemed weird to overlook Yamanouchi entirely. At the least, I wanted to show that yes, it's also not an option for Kim, and I thought it would be interesting to show Kim visiting it for the first time but seeing it under the control of Drakken and Shego._


	5. Acceptance

**Acceptance**

XX

Shego wandered the winding halls of the palace, looking for Drakken. The palace complex was so large that she could probably spend an hour walking from one side to the other if she wanted to. She could also hitch a ride; some of the halls were built wide and installed with electric tracks that carried what looked like little bumper cars. Drakken had insisted on having bumper cars in the hallways, and since money was no object, his wish had become reality. Sometimes Shego would catch him riding down the hallway, hooting with glee, ordering his minions to set up obstacles that he could smash as he hurtled down a hallway track.

Rooms were scattered throughout the palace, too many to count, built to entertain the two of them: an indoor theater, an ice rink, a bowling alley, some fast food places; a pit in which their brainwashed minions were forced to fight.

There was even a room with no purpose other than to serve as a place where Drakken and Shego could dump truck-sized loads of gold and jeweled treasures. Shego sometimes went into the treasure room and picked up trinkets from the scattered piles as she looked up at the roof, half-expecting Talos to lift it up and attack her with a bronze sword for stealing his treasure. Or maybe she would look up one day and find Kim Possible, larger than life and out for revenge.

On top of all the other entertainments and amenities within the palace, one could find a maze of flooded hallways and an indoor water park that was navigated using jet skis, although it was still under construction. Shego had complained about it being a bit crass at first, but she had to admit she was looking forward to trying it out when it was finally complete. Although she was having trouble picturing Drakken on a jet ski.

She opened a side door and finally found her employer – and now co-ruler – sipping on a cocktail as he sunbathed on a small deck outside. His shirt was off, and several beautiful women were oiling his chest. The scene was sleazy enough to make Shego a bit queasy, but she had to admit that she did the same thing with some of her own musclebound assistants. So she was a hypocrite, big deal. And she had to admit she was always taken by surprise at the sight of Drakken's bulging pectoral muscles. It was an awkward sight, but she had to admit the man took care of himself.

"Hello Shego," said Drakken as he noticed his co-ruler's appearance. He waved aside his massage women, as well as a group of men who were fanning him with large palm fronds, in order to get a better look at Shego. "Everything going well with Kim Possible?" he asked.

"Yup. I have to say, our plucky little teen hero hasn't been doing that much since Yamanouchi. The odd investigation here and there, but she's slowing down. It's getting a bit old, to be honest. I was actually wondering if you and Wade knew of any more pockets of resistance still around. Secret bases, that kind of thing. Someplace where I can go do some damage, you know what I mean?"

"I _do_ know what you mean, Shego, but unfortunately I can't help you there. We've pretty much cleared everything out! As far as I can tell, the entire world is at our beck and call. I think that base in England that Kim Possible visited the other day was the last one we've found in weeks."

Shego frowned. Their victory had been fairly complete only days after the brainwashing formula had first spread, but there had been a number of small holdouts to attack for weeks afterwards: small bands of Global Justice agents who had escaped from the initial chaos, cut off from their organization; a few militias; occasional government forces; even a few crazed individuals who had been planning some kind of global brainwashing plot for years. Recently, however, that action had been slowing to a trickle, and she was beginning to feel a little dissatisfied.

Still, Shego had everything she ever wanted at her fingertips. There was no point in dwelling on the occasional negative that came with absolute power. She'd just have to work out some of her energy in the exercise room later. Maybe have a boxing match or something. With the entire world brainwashed, there was no shortage of willing partners to spar with. She could make Yori and Sensei teach her some ninja moves, or have Monkey Fist teach her some of those monkey martial arts moves that he was so fond of. She just hadn't been very motivated to bring them around to the palace lately, since it wasn't like there was any pressing need to hone her fighting skills anymore.

For now, she sat down beside Drakken in another folding chair, grabbing an extra drink and a pair of sunglasses from his refreshment table. She watched through the dark glasses as Drakken's helpers resumed fanning him.

"How do you like your new job?" she asked Kim's father.

"It's wonderful!" said James Possible. "Being a rocket scientist was tolerable, but fanning someone with clearly superior intellect and social charm all day long," - James let out a hearty chuckle at this - "well, it's just the cat's meow!"

"You have said it, James!" said one of the other fanners, whom Drakken had identified earlier as a college acquaintance named Ramesh.

"That's exactly how I feel as well."

The third fanner, yet another college buddy named Chen, agreed with his two friends.

Shego sipped her cocktail and took out the little umbrella, twirling it in her hands as she watched Drakken's trio of man-slaves enthusiastically cooling him. She thought of herself as a little vindictive when it came to all the payback she was giving her siblings for the way they treated her in the past, but she had nothing on Drakken.

XX

The lunch period ended with the ringing of a bell, and everyone got up from the table to empty their trays of food except Kim. One thing that hadn't changed, at least, was the lunch food. The way one could depend on the unappetizing mass of gray goo being served by the lunch lady even after a global catastrophe was sort of comforting.

"Don't wanna be late for class, Kim," said Monique.

"I'll be going in a minute. Don't wait for me."

"Alright. I gotta get to home economics anyway. I've got the juiciest design in mind for this green and black skintight outfit. You and me are gonna be having a fashion show sometime soon, girl!"

"Spanking," said Kim. She waved to Ron and Monique as they left for their next class along with the rest of the lunch room, leaving her alone at her table.

It had been weeks since Drakken and Shego took over Global Justice, Middleton, her friends, her family. Weeks since Kim had checked on Yamanouchi. She was beginning to feel like there wasn't any serious chance at reversing the world's situation. While she had not given up since then, her situation seemed almost comically futile. Yamanouchi had been her last major hope, even if she had almost forgotten about it while she was turning to Global Justice for help – the ninja school had been Ron's area of knowledge, after all.

Kim had not gone on a mission in at least a week. Her last trip had been to check on a GPS location she had found on an obscure website, located in a post that seemed to be a plea for help from some group not yet affected by _MC Ultra_. She had tried to board a plane only to have the ticket taker refuse her ticket. "We have a no Kim Possible boarding policy, straight from Shego," she had been told by the enthusiastic employee at the ticket desk.

Kim had felt a little guilty about stealing a flight attendant's clothing and sneaking on board the plane to make the trip across the Pacific, but it had been an easy alternative. She knew Shego hadn't really been trying to stop, her, anyway. Just playing with her.

Upon arriving at the coordinates – a small island off the coast of Scotland – Kim had found a network of abandoned rooms and tunnels underneath a hillside. The floors had been littered with empty water bottles; whoever was using the tunnels had figured out how the formula spread through water, just like Kim had. But it hadn't helped them. There had certainly been a group of holdouts at some point, but Drakken and Shego had gotten there first. As usual.

Since checking on the ninja school, Kim had listened to radio frequencies, scanned the internet, tried to use any methods in her power to find some weakness in her enemies' total domination, but nothing worked. She had even tried to find out why she was resistant to the brainwashing formula, whether she could find a cure within herself, but it was no use. She was not a scientist, and there were no more scientists to consult. Every expert with any possible chance of helping her was working for Drakken and Shego.

She could break into laboratories and science facilities and do whatever she wanted, since Shego rarely stopped her – and Kim had done just that on multiple occasions – but she always felt like a fish out of water in a science lab. It was like she was trying to put together a puzzle without hands. Perhaps she could someday teach herself what to look for, how to decode whatever resistance had been added to her body, but Kim knew her strengths and weaknesses. It would take years of study, if it was even possible, and she knew Shego would most likely stop her before she got anywhere near the secret.

Kim had even tried to inject a few people with her blood in a desperate attempt to see if something had just gone wrong in the Global Justice facility – maybe Dr. Haytham had botched the sample deliberately when he tested it on his brainwashed subject, seeing as he had been brainwashed himself. Maybe there hadn't been enough time for her blood sample to dispel the brainwashing formula. But nothing ever happened to her targets. The only change Kim could see was the icky feeling she got from injecting strangers as part of her amateur experiments. The fact that they sometimes thanked her afterwards made it even worse.

"Excuse me," said the cafeteria lady, who had emerged from behind the lunch line to look at the dazed-looking red-haired teen sitting by herself at a table. "You're going to be late."

"What? Oh, sorry. I'm going."

Kim finally got up from the table and emptied her tray, leaving the lunch room to go to her locker. Ron was there waiting for her. He gave her a cute, slightly nervous peck on the cheek, and although it wasn't like it used to be, it did bring a smile to Kim's face. She opened her locker to exchange her books and looked at the computer terminal inside.

The monitor was empty and black. It had once shown her images of Wade on a regular basis, and she could still call him anytime she wanted to, but Wade's image had not appeared in weeks. Wade would not help Kim with her increasingly infrequent missions, and she was not interested in talking with him about Drakken and Shego. She closed the locker.

"Ready for class, Kim?"

"Yes."

She followed Ron to their last class of the day. She had gotten used to seeing the pinup posters of a topless Drakken, flexing his pectoral muscles and flashing a grin, posted up inside the locker doors of many of her classmates, male and female. The Drakken and Shego stickers and buttons on backpacks. The way everyone passed her in the hall with a smile. The way no one fought with each other. The way Ron's former tormentors from D Hall now embraced him and chatted happily about the latest news in green and blue. There were no longer any losers in the loser free zone, Kim thought with a bit of confusion.

_Buck up, one class to go_, Kim told herself as she took a seat. No one was late. As a matter of fact, Kim and Ron were the last ones to come in. None of their classmates wanted to miss the planned video of the day: _The Early Life of Our Savior, Doctor Drakken, Part II._

There was a video every day. And the topics were always the same.

Kim was increasingly unsure as to why she kept going to school. At first she had considered skipping it, and she had certainly missed a number of days while she was off trying to find allies against Drakken and Shego, but some part of her had still expected to defeat her enemies eventually and she did not want to fall behind on her homework when the world returned to normal.

Maybe it was also an echo of the old normalcy in life that she wanted, but even that was disappearing fast. Classes had taught regular subjects for a while after Drakken and Shego's takeover, but they were gradually becoming dominated by propaganda, Drakken and Shego-based videos, and lessons on how to learn basic life skills. Basic life skills having been redefined, of course, to refer to any life skill directly related to making Drakken and Shego's life easier. Palace building techniques seemed to be a hot topic lately.

"Glad you could join us, Stoppable and Possible," said Mr. Barkin as he crouched at the front of the class and fiddled with the VCR player below the television. Drakken and Shego were making sure their propaganda videos were getting to schools around the country, but Kim was not surprised they couldn't be bothered to spring for an upgrade to a DVD player. Kim wasn't even sure why propaganda videos were needed in the first place, since people were already brainwashed; maybe it somehow reinforced the effects of the formula. Maybe it was just Drakken preening himself in front of his new worldwide audience.

Mr. Barkin managed to get the VCR working and took a seat behind his desk as the video began to play. Even though Kim had seen him many times since the brainwashing, Mr. Barkin's smile never ceased to send a chill down her spine. Smiles just did not look right on Barkin's face.

A beaming celebrity narrator, Britina, appeared on the screen.

"Welcome to the second installment of our exciting series focusing on the early life of Drew Theodore P. Lipsky," gushed Britina. "Known to most of us, of course, as Doctor Drakken! In our first installment of this series, we looked into the auspicious birth of our Great Leader, followed by his cruel and unfair treatment at the hands of fellow children jealous of his blossoming genius!"

The video rapidly cycled through images of Drakken's parents beaming over their newborn child in what looked like a manger. Kim was fairly sure the mother and father were actors, not his actual parents, although she had never actually seen his father. The video shifted in narrative time to clips of a tiny child actor covered in blue paint, nobly enduring the ill treatment of his snarling fellow pre-schoolers.

"In this installment, we will take a look at Drakken's continuing mistreatment in college, where his misunderstood genius would be forged by hardship and toil into a magnificent force for change in our world! Marvel at his achievements! Weep with gratitude at his magna – er, his-"

Britina paused and looked off to the side of the screen, and Kim heard a voice whispering something to her that sounded like it belonged to Drakken.

"Oh yeah. Magnanimity!"

Kim yawned as Britina began to rant and rave in Drakken's praise. She wondered if tomorrow's video would be devoted to Shego. Drakken seemed to be the more popular focus of the videos. The class watched as if hypnotized and clapped on numerous occasions, and Barkin had moved his chair out in front of his desk to have a better view of the television. He looked more fascinated by the video than Kim had ever seen him look in her life.

Normally, the thought of going to Bueno Nacho with Ron at the end of the day was what gave Kim a little boost to get through her last class, but even that pleasure had been stolen from her. It didn't change the fact that she would still go, however. She didn't know what else to do. And as much as things had changed, a Naco was still a Naco.

XX

"Want one of my Nacos, KP?"

Kim had already eaten half of her own, but was unable to eat the rest. She just wasn't very hungry.

"No thanks, Ron."

Ron shrugged and unwrapped his second order of Nacos, digging into one while Rufus grabbed another. The pink mole rat finished his afternoon snack with blinding speed and noticed a third package sitting on the tray. Tearing it open with tiny claws, Rufus pulled out two action figures – Drakken and Shego.

The Drakken action figure's hand was held up to its chin in a thinking pose, while Shego was on a small plastic stand, her hands extended menacingly in the air. Kim watched as Rufus pressed a button on the toy's stand and squeaked with delight as the Shego figure's hands lit up with a green electronic glow. Rufus arranged the two figures on the table and prostrated himself before them as if he was praying to a pair of idols. Ron smiled and nodded to the figures.

"Pretty badical, right?"

"Sure."

A shadow fell over the table, and the two of them looked up to find Bonnie Rockwaller smiling at them and holding her own tray in her hands. She laughed at the sight of Rufus playing with the action figures.

"Room for one more?"

"Of course, Bonnie," said Ron. "Have a seat!"

Ron moved aside to let Bonnie scoot into his side of the booth, and Kim watched as the two of them ate. Kim used to feel a certain pang of displeasure anytime she saw Bonnie before the brainwashing. She still felt a kind of displeasure now, but it was very different than what it had been in the past. As Kim thought about it, she realized what it was.

All of her classmates, her family, everyone she knew, had changed since the brainwashing. Being taken over by Drakken's serum had changed them immediately – they deferred to Drakken and Shego as soon as they were contaminated, and they all carried a similar pleasant demeanor. After going back to school and spending some time around her friends and family, however, Kim had noticed that not everyone seemed like they were affected in the same way. People like Ron sometimes seemed to retain their old personality, perhaps because Ron had already been carefree and upbeat. In a way, that was what made it even worse with Ron – she could hang out with him and almost convince herself that it was the same old Ron Stoppable, but even when he wasn't making references to Drakken and Shego, it never quite worked. He was just different.

The change was more obvious, however, in people like Bonnie. The pleasant, always-smiling change in her personality was jarring, blatant. Monkey Fist's change in personality at Yamanouchi had also been jarring, but Kim faced Bonnie at school constantly. The girl who had once been a constant thorn in Kim's side was now friendly towards her, like everyone else. The snarkiness and sarcasm were gone. There was no edge to Bonnie anymore. She was a soft, fuzzy mass of conformity that was somehow a hundred times worse than the kind of social conformity Bonnie had endorsed in the past, the kind that tempted Kim in her very worst moments, when insecurities tugged at her.

Drakken had never explained to Kim how the brainwashing serum worked, but as far as Kim could tell, it seemed to make a person more malleable, pliable, eager to please, and channeled those personality changes into a fervent love of Drakken and Shego. There didn't appear to be any direct mind control going on, no orders beamed into the brain, but the two supervillains held an entire world of willing devotees at their fingertips, ready to happily obey any command they were given. It was a religion. _MC Ultra_ was the holy spirit, Drakken and Shego the gods.

"Something wrong, K?"

Kim stared at Bonnie without answering the question. Weeks ago, the question would have been a sarcastic one, but Bonnie meant it genuinely now. Kim never thought she would see the day when a friendly Bonnie was the worst possible thing she could imagine. Drakken and Shego's victory was most obvious in people like Bonnie. It was impossible to ignore.

Ron got up and went for more Nacos while Bonnie lost interest in trying to get a response out of Kim, instead staring vacantly out the window. Kim picked up the action figure of Shego, ignoring Rufus' squeak of protest, and turned it over in her hands as she stared at it.

Shego. Her arch nemesis. Her tormentor, her captor. It had taken Kim a long time to figure out why Shego had let her go, why Kim was free to do whatever she wanted in an attempt to defeat her foes. Shego knew that Kim had no hope, for one thing, but it was more than that: Shego wanted Kim to be completely defeated.

Sometime in the weeks after the world had been taken over, sometime after it had become increasingly apparent to Kim that she would find no more allies, she had realized that this was Shego's ultimate goal in letting her go free. All the times Kim had defeated Shego, whether in combat or by destroying her plans with Drakken, were being paid back in full. Kim felt utterly helpless. Utterly alone. Her motto, _I can do anything_, had turned into a mockery of itself. Letting Kim carry on with a perversion of her old life was a way to remind her, every day, of how completely she had lost. She wondered if even brainwashing would be better than her current situation.

The worst part of it was that some part of Kim understood Shego. Kim had always gotten a certain exhilaration from defeating her nemesis. She loved beating her time and time again, proving herself to be the superior fighter. Shego did more of the taunting, but Kim enjoyed getting a jab in when her opponent was defeated. In a way, Shego had just taken her own competitive attitude to its most extreme limit.

"You sure you're not hungry, Kim?"

Ron returned to the booth with more food and held a Naco out to Kim. This time she accepted it.

"Thanks, Ron."

As Kim watched her best friend eating, she knew that she was beginning to consider giving up. She did not want to accept this new reality, but maybe she had to make herself accept it. It wasn't ideal – it wasn't even good, really - but maybe it would be enough. She could not see any other options. There was no escape. Nothing was possible.

Kim had lost, and Shego had won.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Okay, this chapter is a little depressing, but it starts to pick up after this, I promise! :) This was originally combined with the last chapter, but I felt like it was too much for one chapter, which is why this one was up pretty fast._


	6. The Way She Wants It

**The Way She Wants It**

XX

Shego pulled up the collar of her trench coat as she approached a group of strangers on the sidewalk. A couple of them glanced at her as they drew closer, one of them even squinting his eyes a little as if trying to see her more clearly in glare of the afternoon sunlight. She quickened her pace as she passed them by. There was a moment of tense anticipation as she waited for one of them to call her name or try to stop her, but all she heard was silence. They had not recognized her.

For all the benefits that came with taking over the world, there were also drawbacks that had become increasingly apparent as time passed. Green skin had never allowed Shego to go incognito very effectively, but she remembered the days when not everyone knew who she was. The days when she could go where she wanted, walk through a street without being accosted by people trying to compliment her and sing her praise. Shego had enjoyed the attention in the first couple of months, even if she wouldn't have admitted it at the time, but now she was tired of it. Her worshippers had long overstayed their welcome.

Today, Shego had decided to disguise herself as well as she could manage and take a walk through town. Trench coat, gloves, glasses, tucked in hair, and a fake mustache. She was tired of being around Drakken and their usual cadre of henchmen and sycophants, and she wanted a little fresh air. Something different, for once. Unfortunately, her walk was not turning out to be as refreshing as she had thought; her costume was working well enough, although earlier someone had gotten a good look at her green skin and asked her to sign an autograph, but even with her relative anonymity, Shego found herself on edge no matter where she went. She couldn't focus on taking a walk - only on whether or not yet another brainwashed citizen was going to interrupt it.

The red brick building on Shego's changed abruptly to more sidewalk as she reached a street corner. Having no destination in mind, she looked around, wondering if she should go back the way she came, keep following the sidewalk to her left, or take the crosswalk across the street to the buildings on the other side. She looked at the building directly across from her and realized it was a bank.

Shego hadn't robbed a bank in a long time.

Well, that wasn't exactly true. Shego and Drakken had gone on a spree of robberies soon after the brainwashing serum had spread through the world, but she wasn't sure if they could be called robberies when no one cared what they took. Shego remembered the chicken dance performed by some of the guards at Fort Knox on her command and couldn't help but smile. She had done the same thing when they paid a visit to the New York Federal Reserve on the same day, actually. Being driven through Times Square at night in the back of a stretch limousine's swimming pool filled with gold bars was a memory Shego would never forget. Although a swimming pool filled with gold bars was even less comfortable as it sounded.

Still, that was all in the past, and Shego had not genuinely robbed anything in months. There was no need; anything she wanted was given to her. As Shego scoped out the bank in front of her, she decided she had just found something to do. It wasn't like there was anything more important to do. She crossed the street, threw open the bank's doors, and walked into the center of the room. She was about to ignite her hands with green plasma, but realized that would give her away too quickly.

"Alright, listen up everybody! Get on the ground and shut up – I'm robbing this bank!"

The few scattered screams and gasps that followed her announcement were like music to Shego's ears. The bank's customers did as she asked, and she approached the nearest teller's window. An ashen-faced lady gulped behind the glass. Shego had already noticed her hand disappearing briefly beneath the counter, but she didn't mind. Police would actually add some fun to the situation.

"Get me your manager, lady. Pronto."

The lady was about to scurry off for the bank manager when she paused and looked back at Shego. There was a long silence as the two of them stood staring at each other. Customers, who had been holding their hands over their heads in terror as they lay on the ground, peeked out to see what was going on. Shego groaned as she noticed the color returning to the woman's face, along with a tentative smile.

"Is that... you?"

"Look, just get your manager."

The lady nodded and ran off, appearing a moment later with the bank manager.

"Shego!" the manager said warmly as he stepped through a door in the glass-plated wall barrier that separated tellers' counters from the customers' side of the room. He walked over and grabbed Shego's limp hand, shaking it enthusiastically. "So nice of you to stop by. Do you want some money?"

"No, I'm – well, yes, but I – I'm here to rob you, okay? Open the safe or you're in for a world of hurt!"

Shego tried to sound dangerous, but she was already losing interest. Clearly, she had not thought things through, because this was the most anticlimactic bank robbery she could ever remember carrying out.

"Gladly!"

The bank manager began to lead Shego towards the safe in the back of the building, but Shego stopped. He looked back after a moment, realizing he was no longer being followed by his most valued customer.

"Something wrong?"

"Look," Shego said falteringly, "can't you just – I don't know, can't you just pretend like I'm robbing you? I mean, pretend like you don't want to give me the money in the safe, like I'm your enemy. When the police get here I can hold you guys hostage, too."

"Oh, I already told the police it was a false alarm," said the bank teller who had gotten the manager. She gave Shego a beaming while she hung up her phone with a loud _clack_. "They're sending an officer to make sure, but I don't think he'll understand when he sees _you_ robbing the bank. The very idea is a little silly," she said with a laugh.

"Rrrrgh! Just pretend like this is a big hold up, alright?" She turned to the manager again and lit her fists up with a burst of green flame. "You – I'm gonna try to take you down now, so you'd better fight back!"

Shego attacked the manager half-heartedly, and he dutifully pushed back against her. She knocked him to the ground and slashed at his chest, giving him a minor burn, at which the manager writhed in pain for a moment. Bizarrely, he was still smiling.

"Oh no," he said. "Shego, you're so strong. I can't resist. Please don't take our money."

The fight sputtered to a halt as Shego stopped swinging. She sat on the manager's chest, pinning him down to the floor, and stared at him with a frown. By now, the rest of the customers were staring at the scene in confusion. The energy seeped out of Shego as she grew aware of her embarrassing situation. What was she thinking?

"Oh, screw this."

Shego got up and stormed out of the bank in a huff.

"Don't you want any money?" the manager asked before she went out the door. Shego did not answer.

Her walk ruined, Shego decided to go back the way she came. She passed a police car that had just come to a stop, arriving to check on the alert. An officer stepped out of the car and gave her a thumbs up, which made her snarl menacingly as she stepped onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street.

A man stepped out of a building in front of Shego and began to walk towards her, his attention glued to a newspaper he was holding. As he glanced up and saw who he was approaching, he threw the newspaper to the ground and dropped to his knees, a tear glistening in each eye.

"Shego, please – have my babies!"

"Get out of my face!"

XX

A fake mustache lay on the polished marble floor of the palace foyer like some kind of dead animal. A pair of sunglasses lay beside it. The sunglasses had cracked on impact with the floor, but it didn't matter; both of the items would soon be cleaned up by a palace attendant, and there was no shortage of sunglasses in the world.

A wrought-iron coat rack stood beside the palace door, adorned with jade and emerald. Much like everything else in the palace, it had been made by one of most skilled artisans in the world. Like sunglasses, skilled artisans were not in short supply for Drakken and Shego. A trench coat hung on the coat rack. Shego stood for a moment in the air-conditioned foyer, trying to cool herself off – it had not been a good day to wear a trench coat outside.

The palace foyer was generally white and opaque in color, encased in so much marble that it looked like someone had carved the entire room out of a single block. Decorations were sparse but tasteful, and the focus of the room was a majestic curving double stairway that led up to the second floor, situated directly across from the entrance. Set up beside the stairway, however, was another wrought-iron object that was hard to miss: a cage. A man in a helmet sat inside the cage, sporting an awkward goatee dressed in a red uniform that stood out like a sore thumb compared to the rest of the room. The man looked ecstatic to see Shego, as he always did.

"Hello, Dementor."

"Hello, Shego! It is nice to see you back from ze valk! You are looking very refreshed, yes?"

"Um, sure. Where's Drakken?"

Dementor stuck a hand out of his cage and pointed deeper into the palace.

"He is in ze pool complex. Probably very pruney by now, I should think. Hah!"

Shego left the foyer in search of her co-ruler, leaving Dementor behind as he pushed a tab built into the side of the cage that gave him food pellets on command.

Dementor had taken a long time to capture – he had been more prepared than many of their other foes, and his whereabouts were unknown to them for quite a while. Eventually, though, weeks after the _MC Ultra_ spread to the world's farthest reaches, the stocky mini-mensch had arrived at their palace doorstep, ready to beg forgiveness for ever opposing them. Drakken had made the cage for him soon afterwards. Shego had found it amusing at first, but now there was something about the sight of Dementor in his cage that bothered her. Sometimes she came into the palace through a side entrance just to avoid the sight.

A narrow hallway leading out from the palace foyer sloped gradually downwards. The floor beneath Shego's feet soon became damp, and she reached a brief widening in the hallway that culminated in a concrete ledge, beyond which was a maze of halls and rooms flooded with a few feet of water. A handful of jet skis were arranged alongside the ledge. Shego jumped onto one of them, and after it sputtered to life, she raced down one of the continuing hallways that had been marked by a sign that read 'Pool Complex'.

Drakken had insisted on installing the indoor jet ski maze and water park because he thought it would be fun to use. Shego had insisted that the maze was not a good idea, and she had been right. As it turned out, jet skiing through hallways may have been cool in theory, but was much more awkward than you might expect in reality. Especially when you needed to turn corners. Having an indoor water park and half-submerged palace wing also clashed horribly with the more upscale parts of the palace, like the foyer, but that was the result of compromising with her boss.

Shego had to admit, however, that the water park was impressive. Eventually the flooded hallway maze opened up into a landscape of interconnected pools, all contained in a massive room under a gently sloping transparent ceiling. The walls were also lined generously with windows, giving the room an airy feel. Hanging out in the water park during a thunderstorm was a unique experience, Shego had discovered.

She passed through deeper and shallower pools, fountains, areas with underwater bubble jets built to seem like gigantic hot tubs, and specially built ramps for her jet ski. Various slides lined the edges of the cavernous room, and the ocean-like pools were studded with artificial islands. There were a few boats floating around in various parts of the complex; sometimes Drakken and Shego held mock battles of brainwashed subjects for their amusement, like the kind she remembered reading about Romans holding in the Colosseum when it was flooded.

One part of the pool complex even contained a live tiger shark. Shego still had no idea why Drakken had gotten the shark – his explanation had been a nonsensical rant about supervillain protocols – but at least the shark pool was carefully cut off from the rest of the pool system. Shego just had to be careful not to hit a ramp with her jet ski and fling herself straight into its maw.

She arrived at one of the larger concrete islands in the center of the pool complex and parked her jet ski alongside its small dock. The island held a few bookcases, a small shack-like building with a private bathroom, a mini-bar and refrigerator, and even a corner with a few computer terminals for checking on evil schemes. It was one of Drakken's favorite places to spend his time, and the man in question was currently lounging on a folding chair and enjoying the sunlight pouring in through the glass ceiling above them.

"Hello Shego," he said as he sipped on a margarita. "Nice walk?"

"Yeah."

Shego took a look at the computer terminals, already knowing that there would be nothing to see, and sure enough, the world was the same as it had been for over a year. Kim Possible was being monitored at all times, no new holdouts had been found for months, and everything was taken care of. She sighed and sat down in a beach chair beside her boss. She had been doing a lot of sunbathing in beach chairs lately.

"What have you been up to today, Doctor D?"

Drakken waved vaguely around him. A few attendants on the island took a step forward, as if expecting his wave to turn into an order, but stepped back again in disappointment as they realized he did not want anything.

"Just this."

"No new inventions?"

Drakken shook his head.

One of the attendants on the artificial island – one of the Wegos, in fact – stepped forward after preparing another margarita from the mini-bar and handed it to Shego. She thought about Drakken's behavior as she took a sip.

There had been a definite change after the first few months of world domination. Whereas Drakken had once invented ridiculous but sometimes brilliant contraptions almost on a weekly basis, he had not made anything new in a long time. Shego couldn't remember the last time she had seen him slaving away over a laboratory table, a heat shield over his eyes and a welding torch blazing away on some grotesque hunk of material. It wasn't surprising, she supposed. All of Drakken's work had been geared towards world domination. What reason was there to invent anything if Drakken's goal was now accomplished?

Shego watched her boss as he stared up at the transparent ceiling of the pool complex, his eyes occasionally flitting back and forth. Maybe he was watching the clouds, she thought. Or birds that were passing by. There was one word that came to mind when she looked his expression: bored.

"Maybe you should try calling your mother," she suggested.

Drakken did not reply, but his face seemed to darken a little, and Shego almost regretted making the comment.

His mother had come to mind because, while pondering about Drakken's mood, Shego had remembered what had happened with Mrs. Lipsky during the initial spread of the brainwashing formula. Drakken had forgotten about his mother in all their hectic plans, and she had been brainwashed. He soon remembered his mistake and sent a henchman to give her an inoculation against the formula, but the damage had already been done. Shego had not experienced the formula's effects herself, but she imagined a person would probably feel violated after being released from its effects.

Shego also knew that Mrs. Lipsky was now aware of her son's real profession; it was a little hard to ignore nowadays, after all. His mother did not approve, and her visits had ceased, along with all other contact. Drakken never brought up the subject himself, but Shego could tell that it had begun to weigh on him more and more over time. Based on the way he acted any time Shego brought up the subject, she suspected that maybe his mother's visits had not been as unwelcome as they had appeared to her. Shego supposed that Drakken and his mother had once had a closer bond than she would have guessed.

"Refill?" asked Wego.

"No, I'm fine."

Shego's sunlight was blocked as the rest of her brothers joined the first Wego and stood around her.

"Do you need any suntan lotion? Maybe a book to read?" asked Hego.

"No, I said I'm fine."

Shego had actually considered reading a book earlier, but she had never been a big reader. She preferred being active, doing things that kept her moving. Wondering where the rest of her brothers had come from, she cocked her head up from her seat a bit and noticed a small dinghy lashed to the dock on the other side of her jet ski.

"What," she asked, "did you guys float over here just to ask me if I needed something?"

"Sure did," said Mego. "We've been floating around in the pool, waiting for you to get back from your walk. How about some finger sandwiches?" he asked, extending a tray towards Shego.

Shego felt a flash of anger as she got up out of her folding chair. She smacked the tray out of Mego's hands, sending the sandwiches flying across the concrete. A few of the landed in the pool and floated like soggy little buoys.

"I don't want _anything_! Will you people give it a rest already?"

Shego did not know why she had become so angry. She decided to go for a swim in order to get away from her brothers and the other attendants, diving elegantly into the pool and coming up for breath only when she was far away from the concrete island.

Her brothers had been getting on her nerves lately. They had gotten on her nerves before they were brainwashed, of course, but something about this was different. Shego had been happy to gloat about her complete domination over them when they had first been brainwashed, but the more they hung around her, the more the sight of them bothered her. It was just like when she saw Dementor – her brothers gave her a strange, vaguely sick feeling that she couldn't quite shake. She swam farther away into the pool, trying to rid herself of the feeling, but it would not go away.

Shego breathed deeply and dove beneath the surface, cutting through the water into a deeper part of the pool. Blue haze gave way to white as she reached the pool's bottom, touching it with the palms of her hands. She turned in her watery cocoon and looked up from the depths as ripples and glints of light played across the pool's surface. Things did not feel much different beneath the water than they felt above it. In both cases, Shego was pressed in on all sides. Surrounded. Slowed to a crawl.

She and Drakken had not talked about their life after the brainwashing, but she got the feeling that Drakken felt the same way she did. Both of them had too much pride to admit it out loud. They couldn't be wrong about something so fundamental to their nature as supervillains. They had succeeded. This was the life they wanted.

XX

"How do you like it?"

Kim looked down at her half-eaten dinner and back up at Ron.

"It's fine."

She poked the food with her fork, already feeling full. It wasn't every day that she and Ron ate at Chez Couteaux, but she wasn't that hungry. Ron had enough appetite for the both of them. After he had finished his own plate, he motioned to the remains of Kim's meal to ask if she was going to eat it. Kim shook her head and pushed the plate over.

As Ron ate, Kim thought that he seemed almost exactly the way he did before he was brainwashed. Sometimes he was different, but sometimes he was the same old Ron Stoppable. The sensation was similar to when Kim saw one of the tweebs and mistook him for the other, just for a moment. If she squinted her eyes and let her vision get blurry enough, she could fool herself into thinking that Jim was Tim and vice versa. She was doing the same thing now with Ron.

"What's up with the squinting, KP?"

"Oh, nothing. Just playing around."

She thought about her situation, and found herself asking questions that she had been asking herself a lot over the past few months. Was Ron close enough to the real Ron? Could she get used to the world the way it was, or would it never be tolerable? Maybe, she thought, people could grow to tolerate anything if they had no choice. If they were just given enough time to get used to it. She had been trying to get used to it for a while now, and it was a struggle, but maybe it was possible.

Kim watched Ron scarf down his linguine, occasionally looking up at her with a silly grin, and found herself unable to answer her own question. She knew she was trying to accept things the way they were. She wanted to convince herself she could live with the Ron Stoppable in front of her, with the mother and father and brothers at her house, with the classmates at her school. She could do it.

She could do anything – even give up.

"Hey Ron," she asked, a question jumping from her lips before she even thought about what it was. "Do you love me?"

Ron looked up from his meal.

"Sure I love you, KP."

"How much?"

He put down his fork and thought for a moment.

"Almost as much as I love Drakken and Shego."

XX

Shego sat alone in one of the palace's multiple control rooms. It was not the main one, but Drakken's approach to palace building seemed to be something along the lines of 'the more the merrier'. She had not bothered to turn the lights on, and the room was dark except for a corona of light surrounding the monitor in front of her. The greens of Shego's face changed into other hues as the monitor threw a rainbow of colors across her. However, the image on the monitor flashed with one color more often than any other: red.

Kim Possible was at some fancy restaurant with that boyfriend of hers, and Shego was watching them from a surveillance camera set up in a corner of the restaurant. She could watch Kim from almost anywhere in the world without too much effort, but Middleton was particularly easy. Every building, every nook, every cranny of the town was blanketed with ways to keep track of the teen hero.

"Do you love me?" the girl on the monitor asked her boyfriend.

Shego watched Kim's crestfallen reaction to her boyfriend's response. Ron was more devoted to Kim's enemies than to Kim herself; normally, Ron's comment and Kim's reaction would be yet another juicy tidbit for Shego to gloat over, but things had been different lately.

The sight of Kim on the monitor was giving Shego the same feeling that she got when she saw Dementor in the cage. When she saw her family waiting on her hand and foot. Even when she saw Drakken's old college friends serving him. It had all been a lot of fun at first, but lately Shego had noticed the perversity of the situation more and more. It was as if the flush of victory was fading, and thanks to Shego's comfortable situation, she had all the time in the world to consider what the world had become.

Shego had relished Kim's total defeat for a long time. All the times that Shego had been defeated by a mere teenager, all the cheeky comments, that maddening ease with which Kim took on every challenge - Shego was having her revenge, and it was a dish best served with a tall glass of brainwashing formula. Ever since that humiliating defeat on top of the Naco headquarters, she had been more obsessed with Kim's defeat than ever. The glimpse of Kim's cold smile as Shego hit the radio antenna still flashed in her memory. Kim had told Shego that she hated her, just before foiling what had been their greatest plan yet. She had seen Kim afterwards, once she had gotten out of jail, enjoying a carefree life with that ridiculous boyfriend of hers. What gave Kim the drive to fight so effortlessly, what she saw in a loser like Stoppable – they were two mysteries that Shego doubted she would ever figure out. It was just too much. Kim had to go down.

Once Shego had understood the ramifications of Drakken's brainwashing plan, she had gambled on Kim having no chance of defeating them, and she had been proven correct. She had talked to Drakken about how letting Kim go free would humiliate her, demonstrate their total victory over her, their total control. And it did do those things. She had watched, all along, as Kim slowly gave up. She had enjoyed gloating over Kim's helplessness.

But Shego had not been gloating in a long time. She had no one left to fight, no enemies left to defeat. There was no way to prove herself anymore. She could go to Kim Possible's house, ring her doorbell, and fight her foe just like they did in the old days, but the old days were gone. Whether Kim won or not, there was nothing at stake. And the way Kim had been looking lately, Shego wondered if she would even bother fighting back. It was almost as if, even without being brainwashed, she wasn't really Kim Possible anymore.

Shego had never thought much about world domination – that kind of thing was always more Drakken's passion, and Shego was simply along for the ride. Maybe to cause a little chaos on the way. And yet, she had accepted world domination as their goal. She had been more than willing to help Drakken achieve it. Everything had gone perfectly, exactly as planned, except for that fact that they had not planned what would happen afterwards.

What Shego had been discovering ever since their victory was that nothing happened afterwards. Without their normal goals, Kim and Drakken were both turning into empty shells before her eyes, and she felt herself joining them. If she didn't do something soon, Shego wondered if she would become just as lost as her teen foe was on that flickering monitor.

Shego blinked as the room's darkness was slashed through the middle by a widening bar of light that fell over her chair. She turned around to find Wade standing in the control room's open doorway, staring at her.

"What is it?"

"Doctor Drakken wanted you come watch some _Evil Eye for the Bad Guy_ with him in the recreation room. It's starting in a few minutes."

"Well, tell him to start without me. I'll be there sooner or later."

Wade looked around at the control room, noticing that lights were off and Shego was the only one inside. He noticed Kim Possible on the monitors in front of her. Shego watched Kim Possible a lot, he noticed. He knew Kim was sort of a personal project of hers, kept free from the brainwashing formula – which Wade thought was a really unfair term for it, really – but, although he had great respect for any decision his master Shego made, he couldn't wait until Kim Possible could be his ally once more.

"Are you okay?" he asked Shego. "Anything I can do for you?"

"I'm fine. Leave."

Shego watched as Wade reluctantly turned back and began to close the door. Their servants were always so eager to help them, she thought. Just before the sliver of light that had flooded the room was about to narrow into nothingness, Shego spoke.

"Wait."

The sliver froze in place.

"Yeah?"

"Come in here."

Shego didn't know what she wanted, exactly. She wanted to look at Wade. As he drew closer, she grabbed him by the arm and jerked him closer. In the past, she knew that someone Wade's age would have been terrified. Almost anyone would be frightened except Kim. Now, however, Wade just gave her the same pleasant smile that everyone else gave her.

She looked into his eyes. They were large, brown, and vacant.

"Do you like following our orders, Wade?"

The boy nodded.

"What about your life before we brainwashed you?"

"Too unpredictable," Wade said. "I had to make so many choices, worry about the right things to do – it was exhausting. I was always worrying about things. About whether Kim and Ron would be okay on their mission, about whether I had gotten all my information right. How I would feel if I did something wrong and they were hurt because of my mistake."

"But now it's different."

Wade nodded in agreement. "Very different. It's much easier to just do what you guys tell me to do. Things are so much simpler now."

"Wade," she said on a whim, "act like a chicken."

Wade promptly obeyed the command and danced around in a circle, crooking his arms and waving them like wings as he clucked. Shego watched the scene impassively. In the past, she would have laughed. Seeing one of Kim's allies humiliated should have been almost as sweet as seeing Kim humiliated herself. And yet she found the scene before her humorless.

He eventually stopped the act, looking at Shego to see if he met with her approval.

"Wade..."

The boy stood eagerly at attention.

"Can you get me a Dodo bird?"

"I'm afraid not, seeing as they're extinct," said Wade. "But I'll look for one anyway."

Wade gave a curt nod and turned to leave the room again, but just before he left the door a second time, Shego stopped him with a cough.

"Forget about the bird – just go."

Wade nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him. Shego was left to her own thoughts again, and while she was enveloped in darkness, a light bulb had just turned on in her mind.

Wade's ridiculous dance, his willingness to do anything she told him. Dementor's servility even when he was caged like an animal in the palace foyer. Her siblings, attending to her every need long after she had run out of needs. All of it had been bothering her more and more often lately, and she realized that it was because she was beginning to put herself in their shoes.

She _had_ been in their shoes, after all. Drakken had been sore for weeks after Shego had pummeled him for putting a mind control chip on her. She knew what it was like to be stripped of her free will, to obey orders with no ability to resist. She had been able to ignore that fact for a long time – Shego cared for very little beyond herself, after all, and at first, victory had been sweet – but being around brainwashed minions and seeing her former foe in the same situation kept nagging at her unceasingly, bringing back those memories.

Almost everyone in the world was brainwashed, the exceptions being Shego, Drakken, Kim Possible, Drakken's mother, and a number of politicians and world leaders who were so willing to bend over backwards for their new masters that no brainwashing was needed. All of the brainwashed people were trapped within their own minds. Kim's mind was free, but in a way, that made it even worse, which was what Shego had been counting on. Kim was forced to be aware of the hopelessness of her situation, and ultimately she was just as trapped as everyone else.

She had gotten a lot of pleasure out of seeing her teen foe so helpless, so alone, but she now understood exactly how Kim felt, because she was in the same situation. Shego was discovering that she had blindly walked into the same snare that she had set for her enemy. It was technically Drakken's snare, to be fair, but Shego had been more than willing to help him set it while adding her own vicious twist for Kim Possible. And it was so large that no one could escape from it. Not even her.

Kim had lost, but Shego did not feel like she had won. She watched the monitors as the red-headed teen poked at her food, occasionally glancing at her boyfriend. She had wanted Kim to suffer, to know true defeat, and here it was, right in front of her. Shego asked herself if she even knew what she wanted. Somehow she knew she would never get what she wanted from Kim. But at least she still had a choice.

XX

The alarm clock rang for several minutes before Kim gathered the strength to turn it off.

She went through her morning routine as she always did. Taking a shower, brushing her teeth, putting on the outfit that she had laid out the night before, combing her hair. One small difference was that Kim did not think about her outfits as much as she had in the past. A big part of her motivation to dress up on a day-to-day basis had been to compete with Bonnie. Bonnie didn't seem to care much anymore, so Kim often just threw things on as an afterthought.

She thought about her date at Chez Couteaux the night before as she stumbled down the stairs. Something about the date had planted a seed in her mind, and it was growing. Before Kim discovered what it would become, however, she had to do one last thing.

Her mother and father sat in the kitchen, eating their breakfast. Ron was not there yet, but she assumed he would arrive soon. Perhaps he was caught up in reading the latest gossip magazine about Drakken and Shego's life. Either way, she did not need to talk to Ron.

"There's some more in the pan," said James as he pointed to the kitchen counter.

Kim ignored the food and sat down at the kitchen table, staring at her parents. They noticed her look after a moment and waited to see what she had to say. Kim decided to be blunt.

"Do you two love me?"

James and Anne looked at their daughter incredulously, and then Anne let out a laugh.

"Of course we do, honey! What kind of a question is -"

"More than anything else in the world?"

Her parents looked at each other, considering the question for a split second, but it was not long before they answered.

"Well, you know how it is, honey. Not as much as Drakken and Shego."

The same answer Ron had given her last night.

Kim felt the seed that had been planted last night blossom into a clear understanding. After going to sleep, she had lain in bed for a long time, staring up a the ceiling and thinking about the way things were. She had asked herself a question. This morning, she knew the answer.

Kim knew that if things stayed the way they were, she had no way to defeat her enemies. They had won, completely and utterly. She knew that things would probably remain the way they were, no matter what she tried to do. But all of that was irrelevant, because there was something else that she now understood.

She could never accept things the way they were.

Kim got herself some of the leftover breakfast that was still keeping warm on the pan. She sat back down at the table, looking at the parents who were almost hers, dreading her upcoming day of school. No, she could never get used to any of it. She would try to learn how to extract an antidote from her own blood, that being one of the slim possibilities she had, even if took years to learn how to do it. If worse came to worse, she could make a last ditch attempt to hold either Shego or Drakken hostage and force the other one to reverse the effects of the formula. She knew there was almost no way she could get to them before she was swamped by hordes of minions, but it was a possibility.

And maybe there was nothing she could do. Maybe the best she could do was wait for some unforeseen opportunity. So be it. Kim Possible wasn't defeated until Shego had given up her vindictive little game and brainwashed her – and until that happened, her enemies were being foolish enough to give her a chance. This world was Drakken and Shego's choice. It was not hers.

"You'd better eat up and quit daydreaming, Kimmie-cub," her father chuckled. "Can't be late for school. What would Drakken and Shego think?"

"I know."

As she ate, Kim noticed a brown package sitting in the middle of the table.

"What's that?"

"Something that came in the mail."

Kim pulled the package closer to herself. A brown paper package tied up with string. She tore away the wrapping paper and string, revealing a small box. There was no card on the box, no writing to let Kim know who it was from.

The box, however, was colored in stripes of green and black.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. For me, it's one among maybe 3 or 4 overall favorite chapters that I've written in various stories. I see it as kind of the pivotal chapter of this story, and it's where the title of this story came from - I was interested in how not just Kim, but particularly Drakken and Shego would deal with world domination, and personally thought they would not enjoy it._

_A Sitch in Time might sort of contradict this, although it's hard to tell in the movie if Shego really enjoys her role as Supreme Leader, but based on her character in the rest of the show, I personally do not think she would. And who knows if Sitch in Time was canon anyway, what with all that time travel! :-p_


	7. Defeat

**Defeat**

XX

Ron knocked on the door of the Possible home, and Kim's parents answered with beaming smiles.

"Hello, Ron! Come on in."

"Hey Mr. Dr. P, Mrs. Dr. P. Kim called me and said she wanted to hang out."

"Yes, she's waiting upstairs."

Kim's parents stepped aside and let Ron into the house. He took the stairs on his way to Kim's loft room, looking forward to spending a lazy afternoon with his girlfriend. Getting a call from her was a very unusual occurrence – Ron still stopped by in the mornings, walked with her to school, hung out with her over the course of the school day, and sometimes even called her up to hang out at Bueno Nacho, but she hadn't initiated anything in a while. Ron couldn't remember getting a call from her in weeks, actually.

He knew that Kim did not yet understand how great Drakken and Shego really were, and that for some reason it was Shego's choice to let her remain that way, but he wished his girlfriend could join him. He had felt so peaceful ever since he had been captured and injected on that fateful night when the weather machines launched and everything changed. He wanted Kim to feel that peace as well. She was probably having trouble adjusting to being the odd woman out, and he hoped that Shego would change her mind and let Kim into the fold soon. For now, at least she had called him. Maybe she wanted to hear about Drakken and Shego. He even had a few pamphlets he could give her on the subject.

Before Ron reached the loft, he noticed Jim and Tim in the upstairs hallway.

"Hey guys."

"Oh, hey Ron," the tweebs said. "Kim's upstairs."

Ron watched as the two of them smiled at him and passed by quickly on the way to their room, closing the door behind them. There was something strange about their greeting; normally, the tweebs would either be running in circles around him the minute he got through the door of the house, or at least be bothering him about something soon after he arrived. Maybe just teasing him, maybe asking him to check out a cool new invention they had created, but most often wanting to talk about Drakken and Shego. Today, although he had only seen them for a second, they seemed downright shy.

"Anybody home?" Ron joked as he stepped up the loft stairs.

"Hey Ron! Come on in."

Ron stepped into Kim's room and found her sitting cross-legged on her bed, surrounded by open textbooks. He grabbed a seat on the desk chair next to her computer and swirled around a few times.

"So what's up, KP?"

"Just doing some homework. I thought maybe you could help me out a bit."

Ron had to laugh. "Help you out? KP, you never need help with homework."

"Well," she said, "I just meant we could do it together. We've got that math test coming up – the applied geometry chapter on the construction of Drakken and Shego monuments."

"Yeah, that's true. I didn't bring a book though."

"You can just use mine. There's pencils and paper in the drawer."

Ron got a spare notebook, a pencil, and some paper out of Kim's desk climbed onto the bed, sidling up beside her as he looked down at her open book. He couldn't be sure, but as he drew closer, he thought he noticed her tensing up a little out of the corner of his eye. Not that he minded; he knew that Kim still had to deal with unfortunate things like tension and nervousness sometimes. For Ron, those feelings were long gone.

"You want a drink?"

Ron looked up from the textbook. Kim pointed to two glasses of soda on her end table, which she had apparently prepared before he arrived. She picked up one of the glasses and took a drink as she looked at her math homework. After a moment's hesitation, Ron reached out for his own glass. He wasn't particularly thirsty, but his philosophy was never to turn down free food or drink.

He was about to take a sip when the glass stopped in midair. Something itched at the back of Ron's mind, an insistent whisper that would not go away. He did not mind the whisper, seeing as he did not mind anything when the all-encompassing devotion he felt towards his masters made it pointless to worry about anything anymore, but he still felt there was something odd going on.

The way the tweebs had acted, the way Kim was inviting him over for the first time in weeks, even something about the way Kim's parents had let him inside. And the glass of soda. He was still considering taking a drink when he noticed that Kim had been staring at her math homework for a long time without writing anything. It was surprising to see Kim stumped on a problem for so long.

Unless...

Still smiling, Ron placed the glass of soda back on the end table.

"You know, I'm not really thirsty."

Ron was just about to begin his math homework when he was knocked off the bed. His girlfriend was on top of him in a flash of fiery hair – and not in a good way, either. Ron found himself struggling as Kim pulled a syringe from her pocket, the needle glinting above him as she tried to keep him still for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Ron-"

Her apology was punctuated by a blast of air shooting out of her lungs as Ron wriggled an arm free and punched her in the stomach. The syringe fell farther away on the carpet as Kim lost her balance and fell backwards. Ron got up, poised to strike, and felt a thrilling energy course through him. It was all over him, instantaneously. The sensation was something like diving into cold water on a sweltering day. Ron felt like he had no feet, like he was floating on air. He noticed Kim looking down at his feet and took a glance himself. He _was_ floating.

"Why are you fighting me?"

Ron's question was met by a roundhouse kick which sent him flying back against the desk chair, which was knocked aside as he hit the desk and knocked Kim's computer onto the ground. She came at him almost before he was up – one punch, two, three – but he fended them off and dodged nimbly aside. The room was awash in a blue glow, and Ron felt raw power coursing through his veins. It was his mystical monkey power, but the last time he had felt it flaring up like this was when he defeated Fukushima during his exchange visit to Japan. Maybe he was being powered by his love of Drakken and Shego. He glimpsed his hands, flailing out almost under their own will as he pressed Kim back with an counterattack, and saw them flicker with the same arcs of energy that surrounded the rest of his body. It reminded him a little bit of Shego's green plasma effect; he was pleased to notice the similarity.

Kim tried to trip him with a sweeping kick, but Ron's floating ability proved particularly useful. "Ron, I promise you," - he blocked a vicious elbow jab - "you'll understand why I need to do this" - another flurry of punches, furniture knocked aside - "if you just stop fighting me for a second!"

"No can do, KP!"

Not even knowing what it was that he was doing, Ron performed some kind of psychic blast which drove Kim back and tripped her over her bed. The Mystical Monkey Power was coursing through him almost of its own accord. He was a rock being worn down by a bright blue stream of liquid energy directed straight at Kim. Soon she would be swept away in its torrent. As much as he was enjoying the feeling of his power, Ron did not want to hurt his girlfriend. What was important was that she did not succeed in injecting him.

Kim had stooped to pick up the syringe from where it had fallen on the carpet when Ron raced down the loft stairs and into the hallway. The tweebs appeared in their doorway, shooting some kind of energy beam at Ron from one of their inventions, but he dodged it easily and moved towards the kitchen.

_ Great,_ Ron thought. _The whole Possible family must be against me now!_

Kim was hot on his heels, needle in hand. "Ron, you want this!" she said. "Remember the way things used to be!"

He was downstairs, in the kitchen. Kim's parents were nowhere to be found as he raced towards the front door. Locked – and, as he tried to punch through, he discovered it was reinforced with some kind of metal. They had been planning this trap, he realized. Ron began to race towards the back of the house when he smacked into Kim, toppling both of them. Kim tried to grab his ankle, but Ron was up again, running to the back door. He didn't bother to see if it was locked. Instead he just hit it with a sailing kick and a blast of crackling energy. Reinforced again.

He chose to focus on the wall beside the door instead. A burst of monkey power made the room rattle as Ron threw himself against the wall, bursting through into the back yard in a shower of dust and plaster.

_Okay, that worked._

Ron was running, gaining speed. He was free. He had to go straight to his masters and tell them Kim Possible had the antidote, that she had used it on her family and was trying to use it on him. It would not take long to get there, he -

He felt a strange sting in his back, pulsing faintly through the mystical power that consumed him. Almost instantaneously, the power began to fade, and the blue glow grew fainter as Ron slowed down. He glanced behind himself and saw Kim standing and watching him as he grew tired and began to shuffle forward more slowly. He realized the sting in his back was coming from a needle.

Shego, Drakken – so wonderful, so awe-inspiring, so – so -

Feelings blurred together as Ron began to feel overwhelmed. What was happening? Weren't they his enemies? He felt arms wrap around his back and pull him to the ground, but he was no longer fighting. He was too confused to fight. Month's worth of memories began to twist and turn into a new form. Happiness, carefree blankness of mind, was being replaced by fear. Disgust, anger. He felt Kim pulling the needle from his back and turning him over. He looked up into green eyes and felt his fear giving way to relief.

More than that, though, Ron felt an emotion which was deeper than all the others: love. Not forced, not coerced, but real love.

"It's alright, Ron. You're back."

Kim held him as she reassured him. She knew they had to get back inside before someone in the neighborhood saw that something was amiss, but she took a moment longer to hold him, feeling exhausted herself. Ron had been hard to stop under the influence of his Mystical Monkey Power. She wondered why it had flared up so quickly. It was the first time she had seen Ron fighting since the brainwashing – somehow the effect of MC Ultra in his system must have released Ron's inhibitions, relieved some mental block that allowed him to exercise his power to its fullest.

Kim had to admit that he had almost beaten her. Almost.

"Come on, Ron. We have to get back inside."

She helped him up as they returned to the jagged hole in the wall that Ron had created. It would be hard for anyone not to notice the hole, but fortunately their back yard wasn't exactly an area with heavy traffic. And now that Ron was back, things could really get going.

"KP, I feel so strange," Ron said. Kim's parents appeared – they had been hiding so as not to get in their daughter's way - and helped the two of them into the house.

The Possibles went into the kitchen and sat Ron down in a chair, getting him a glass of water. This time, he was happy to have a drink that Kim offered him. He shook his head as if he was dazed.

"It's like I've been thinking a certain way all this time, and now my mind just did a backflip or something. I know I've been brainwashed, but even now that I'm free, it's like I still feel this urge to run back to Drakken and Shego."

Kim nodded. Her parents and the twins had said the same thing when she had given them the antidote. Ron was back, but she would still have to watch him, at least for a few hours.

"We think it's a side effect of being brainwashed for so long," she said. "Maybe your mind is used to being a certain way, and it's too conflicting when you go back to normal."

"It gets better before too long," Anne reassured him.

"Ugh," he said. "I feel like I'm gonna have a huge headache." He took a deep gulp of water. "What are we going to do now?"

Kim sat at the kitchen table and looked at her boyfriend, then at her parents. The twins had just come down the stairs – Kim had told them to stay in their rooms, but they hadn't been able to resist trying to stop Ron with their new paralysis ray. They joined the rest of their family at the kitchen table and slapped Ron on the back, welcoming him back to reality.

"Now?" said Kim. "It's payback time."

XX

Shego was pummeling a punching bag in the exercise room when the alarms went off. She looked up at the ceiling, listening to the sound for a moment with growing excitement. It had been a couple of weeks since Shego sent the package to Kim, and she had waited patiently since then. Now, the day she had been waiting for was at hand.

Shego felt giddy in her anticipation of what Kim might have planned for her, but she made herself take a moment to cool down, drinking a gulp of water from the bottle lying on a nearby bench press machine and toweling herself off. There was something amusing in the fact that while Shego had seen Kim as an unwelcome nuisance so often in the past, only there to mess up whatever she and Drakken were planning, she was now waiting on pins and needles for Kim to arrive and give her everything she had.

The nervous excitement coursing through her body was a feeling Shego had not felt in a long time, and it told her that she had made the right decision. A green glow enveloped her hands as she tested her plasma power for a moment, flexing her fingers in and out. Her heart beat a little faster. Every muscle sang with energy, her senses sharpened like knives. She was ready.

The palace's central control center was buzzing with activity when she got there from the exercise room. Henchmen ran by on overhead platforms, their footsteps clanging above her head. Security experts and technicians stabbed furiously at keyboards as monitors vomited a slew of information at them. Drakken had already gotten there before Shego; he stood beside Wade as he looked at the central monitor bank and pulled his black hair with tiny, frustrated fists.

"What's going on? Who are they?"

A horde of camouflaged and well-armed figures were showing up on the monitors, approaching the palace from all sides. Shego noticed that it was raining outside. The figures slogged through mud and bushes, broke in through various entrances, through vents on the roof, slogged through the waste disposal system below the palace. Vehicles were parked outside of every entrance and several helicopters flew overhead. Even the secret entrances had been found. Even if they hadn't, though, the fact that Shego could see any unauthorized visitors at all approaching so close to the palace meant that their security measures had been compromised.

"I don't know who they are," Wade said.

"Where are my armies of brainwashed minions?" Drakken screeched. "Why isn't anyone responding to this threat? You are supposed to be handling these things, boy – you're a supergenius, are you not? What have you been doing, surfing the internet all day?"

"No," Wade said indignantly. "I'm looking into it, give me a few minutes."

Shego looked around the room, noticing scattered henchmen, but it was true that a veritable army of brainwashed followers should have converged on the palace from all around Middleton in order to defend their masters. The fact that was it raining outside could be a coincidence, Shego thought – or it could mean that Kimmie had taken her advice. Drakken stared at Shego with a look of dismay, and she tried to suppress a laugh. Clearly, they had been taken by surprise.

Something about the way Wade had responded to Drakken a moment ago had piqued Shego's interest. She stared at the boy as he typed away at his control station and noticed that he didn't seem to be in as much of a hurry as anyone else in the room. There was something strange about his expression as well. Shego grabbed Wade's shoulder and spun him in his chair, looking into his eyes.

"Ah," she said with a laugh. "Interesting."

Drakken looked like his eyes were about to pop out of his head.

"What? What's interesting?"

"Wade's not brainwashed anymore."

The young boy looked like he was about to deny Shego's accusation, but he glanced between his two former captors and decided the jig was up. His look of astonished innocence changed into an impudent grin as he shrugged and held up his hands.

"You got me. No brainwashing here."

"But – if you're – but, I – what -"

Drakken sputtered out a few more words and finally realized he had nothing coherent to say. He looked at the monitors again as the camouflaged figures penetrated deeper into the palace itself. Skirmishes began to break out in ballrooms, hallways, libraries, anyplace that the invaders ran up against Drakken's palace henchmen. The henchmen wielded their shock sticks against a variety of tasers, riot guns, and other non-lethal weapons that the infiltrating army seemed to wield. Drakken even saw a few weapons he did not recognize, some of which shot out pulsing jets of energy that knocked his henchmen across the room.

"Who are they?" he asked.

Wade looked at the images with his hands smugly joined behind his head. "Global Justice mostly, some Army Special Ops helping out. They're using top of the line stuff, too. We didn't want to take any chances."

"How – how did you -"

"Oh, I haven't been brainwashed for at least a week now," Wade said, understanding what Drakken was trying to ask before he had even finished the question. "I've been disabling all the palace security systems, dismantling your international operations, doing everything I could to set things up for today. I couldn't shut down _all_ the security systems, of course – people in here would notice if I was tampering with the palace monitors, for instance. But that doesn't matter. It's way too late for you to do anything now."

Drakken scratched his head as he watched a security camera overlooking the palace foyer. Dementor's cage had been opened, and while Dementor had fought tooth and claw in defense of his captors – even living in a cage, he was still brainwashed – one of his Global Justice opponents had just sprayed him with some kind of watery mist from a gun with a nozzle on the end. Drakken was horrified to see Dementor fall to the ground, shake his head in confusion for a moment as the agent talked to him, and then get back up, face distorted with rage, as he joined his attackers in pushing deeper into the palace.

"They have the antidote? How did they get that? How are you not brainwashed anymore, for that matter?"

"Um, I actually don't know the answer to that one," Wade said truthfully. "Kim had it somehow. She slipped it to one of the palace attendants when he was out getting groceries, then he put some of it in a cup of water, gave the cup to me, and here I am. I just kept pretending to be brainwashed to fool you guys. Nice, huh?"

Wade punched a few keys on his terminal, and a different set of images went up over the monitor bank. Drakken stared in horror as weather machines floated through darkening skies in various parts of the world, setting off wind and storms wherever they went. "We're undoing the effects of your brainwashing formula right now," he said. "We had to coordinate it with the attack on your palace here so you wouldn't get a chance to escape to some other base of operations. Honestly, it wasn't that hard to fool you, considering you spend most of your time sitting around like a bum nowadays."

Drakken ground his teeth in frustration. "Why am I still talking to you?" he snarled. He snapped his fingers at a pair of nearby henchmen. "You two, take this boy and dump him in-"

A deafening explosion cut off Drakken's order as a cloud of dust and debris blanketed the control center. Something had blown a hole in one of the far walls, and after regaining his footing from the shock of the blast, Drakken stared in horror as masked figures poured through the breach and began to fight his minions.

It was clear that his palace guard was severely outnumbered – Drakken had counted on having Middleton, and the world as a whole, at his fingertips in the event of any serious security threats. Arcs of sizzling energy shot through the air as the control room descended into chaos. Wade waved at one of the uniformed figures and darted off from his command post to join the Global Justice attackers before any of Drakken's henchmen could grab him.

"Okay Doctor D," said Shego. "It's been fun, but I'm gonna try to make a break for it now. Hope you understand!"

"Shego, wait! Where are you going!"

Drakken's protest fell on deaf ears as his world co-ruler had darted off in the opposite direction Wade had gone, leaving him to fend for himself. He turned back just in time to see the last of his henchmen being subdued as the fighting died down. A trio of figures approached him and removed the camouflage masks they had used while sneaking into the palace. Two of them had menacing expressions, but one of them had a goofy smile on his face.

Drakken gulped. He cursed himself for being so stupid – he remembered dismissing Will Du and Dr. Director a couple of months ago and letting them go home from the palace, seeing as there had been no point in keeping them around. The presence of Kim's sidekick was not as surprising, although as usual, his name escaped Drakken. It was on the tip of his tongue.

"I see you three must have been un-brainwashed as well," Drakken said nervously.

"Yep," said Ron Stoppable. "And let me tell you, having more than six month's worth of memories as a brainwashed Drakken and Shego flunky? It's sick and wrong."

"I'm sure," Drakken laughed. "But everything worked out in the end, right?"

The trio nodded.

"You know, I have a _lot_ of gold in this palace. I remember you being quite partial to the bling, um – what's your name again?"

"You know my name, Drakken."

Drakken scoured his mind for the name, hoping it might appease his foe. Rob, Ranulf – no, that was ridiculous, no one was named Ranulf anymore – Ron. Yes, Ron! That was it!

"Ah yes, Ron! Ron Stoppable!"

"You got it."

"So how about it – Ron? You two? Would any of you be interested in some kind of negotiation?"

Three pairs of fists traveling rapidly towards his face told Drakken that they were not.

XX

Shego deftly bobbed and weaved her way through another fight between the Global Justice operatives and Drakken's henchmen, dodging energy blasts and flinging her own green fireballs. She escaped from the melee and passed through several more rooms until she reached an entrance to the jet ski maze. She had avoided the foyer, seeing as that had already been overrun, and was taking an alternate route. Not that Shego knew if she had any chance of getting out of the palace through the indoor water park, but if she was going to go out, she wanted to go out with a bang.

"Shego!"

Shego did not bother to turn around. She knew the voice by heart; Kim Possible had found her. She stepped up her pace and passed a last corner to reach the jet ski room.

Before she could get on a jet ski, she felt herself tripped from behind. Shego turned with a snarl and managed to flip Kim Possible over herself as she leaped forward to attack. The two of them got up and circled each other for a moment. Shego laughed. It already felt right. This was the way things should be.

Kim rushed forward in a feinting maneuver and tried to catch Shego with a chop to the side, but she was too fast. One punch blocked, one returned, a burst of plasma narrowly avoided. Kim was wearing that ridiculous white suit that Wade had made for her, using it to absorb some of Shego's raking slashes and throw back one of her plasma blasts. Shego wondered if she should have gotten Wade to make one of those for herself, but it was too late now. And there was something about needing a special suit that made her bristle. Her powers were all natural, after all. Well, sort of.

The two of them traded blows in a deadly dance, feeding off each other like a pair of musicians who had played together for years, anticipating not just the notes but the improvisations. Even after the months Shego had spent without fighting Kim, it came back to her with no effort. Just like riding a bike.

A break in the fighting gave Shego the opportunity to leap onto the nearest jet ski and turn off into one of the flooded hallways. Kim Possible leaped on her own jet ski and followed close behind. Shego was hoping to kick up some speed, but as usual, the maze's twists and turns made the experience very anticlimactic. Both of the jet skis bounced awkwardly off walls as they tried to maneuver through the maze.

"Why the heck did you build this in your palace?" Kim yelled behind her over the roar of the jet skis.

"Don't ask me, it was Drakken's idea."

Another few turns and Shego made it out into the pool complex of the water park. She looked around as the jet ski picked up speed. Now that they were in the giant, glass-encased room that housed the water park, the storm raging outside was more obvious. The occasional blast of lightning flashed above the glass ceiling. Several holes had been cut into the glass, through which rain was falling into the pools, and rappelling lines hung down into the room. Global Justice operatives fought on poolside concrete with some of Drakken and Shego's loyal attendants and henchman, but the sheer size of the room made Shego's enemies sparse. This was definitely her best chance to escape.

Risking a quick glance back, Shego caught a glimpse of red hair whipping wildly over the pursuing jet ski as her foe drew closer. She looked ahead again and leaned forward, water spraying against her as the jet ski bounced across the network of interconnected pools. Some of the pools were separated by concrete barriers, but many of them overlapped into each other in deeper and shallower sections, or were divided by smooth, ramp-like sides that jutted out of the water. Shego enjoyed the pools – it had been one of Drakken's better ideas – and she knew exactly how to navigate through them. Kim was forced to follow her enemy's lead.

A grim smile spread across Shego's face as she sped towards her destination. She had one last trick up her sleeve before she left the palace entirely. Coming up on a ramp that she normally made sure to avoid, Shego cut the jet ski's speed at the last moment and veered awkwardly off the ramp to the side, avoiding the pool that she would have flown into otherwise.

Kim did not have time to match Shego's move, and her jet ski hit the ramp and flew into the air. Shego cursed as she watched the teen fly overhead; Kim had been going too fast. Her jet ski cleared the pool entirely, went over the concrete barrier on its far side, and landed in another pool.

"Um, Shego?"

"Yeah, Princess?"

"Did I just jump a shark?"

Shego maneuvered her jet ski towards her next destination: the far side of the pool complex. She passed the concrete island on which she and Drakken had sunbathed and enjoyed refreshments so many times, almost feeling a bit wistful at the sight of it. Still, opulence could be fun for a while, but as Shego picked up speed and approached the far end of the room, she felt freer than she had in a long time. By giving up everything, she was truly escaping.

The water at the far end of the room grew shallower in depth until the concrete rose up smoothly from its blue surface, forming a wide ramp that extended across a large part of the pool's edge. Beyond the ramp, past a walkway of concrete, glass windows overlooked a grassy hillside. Beyond the hillside was a forest. If Shego could get there, it was her best chance of evading Kim and the Global Justice agents.

Shego twisted the throttle and brought the jet ski to its limit, barely holding on as she bounced over the surface of the pool. The glass windows came up rapidly. Shego hoped a jet ski would be able to glide on a grassy hillside without breaking apart on her. She hadn't tried it before, but there was a first time for everything. She hit the ramp, lifting off into the air and holding onto the handles for dear life.

The jet ski smashed through the glass window as Shego closed her eyes, sailed another dozen yards or so before hitting the well-tended hillside, glided for a moment – Shego was too winded to notice this little victory – and began to roll, throwing Shego off with its momentum. The jet ski tumbled down the hillside and broke apart as Shego slid to a halt on the grass, a few glass fragments raining down around her from the broken window. She groaned and lay still.

Going through the window hurt more than she had counted on.

Still winded, Shego looked up at the sky and watched the rain falling down around her until her view was blocked out by a mass of windblown red hair and a familiar scowl. Kim had thought better of following Shego through the window. Instead she had slowed her jet ski down on reaching the end of the pool and picked her way through the remainder of the broken window, walking out onto the palace grounds. Shego returned her teen foe's scowl.

"Alright, Kimmie, bring it on."

Shego struggled to her feet and threw a punch, but Kim easily blocked it and returned with her own left hook that sent Shego crashing back to the ground. As Shego shook her head and looked around, recovering from the blow, Global Justice agents began to appear from inside the pool complex, as well as outside on the palace grounds.

She was surrounded. It had been worth a try, at least.

"I see you got my package," she said as she looked up from the ground.

Kim Possible did not answer, throwing a withering stare at Shego before she turned away and walked back towards the palace. Probably in search of Stoppable. Several Global Justice agents picked her up from the ground, gingerly picking a few pieces of glass from her jumpsuit. She made no attempt to fight. She knew what was going to happen next, and she was almost looking forward to it.

XX

The living room inside the Possible home was silent, although the entire Possible family was sitting inside. Except, of course, for Kim. Anne Possible held the twins, who were sitting on either side of their mother as they waited for the news. James Possible paced back and forth with a cell phone held up to his ear. His family waited for one of the longest moments they had ever experience, until finally James closed the phone and put it on the living room table.

"Well?" asked his wife.

James looked at his family very seriously for a moment, and then broke into a smile.

"Wade says it's all over. Drakken and Shego have been caught!"

The thick silence that had lain over the house ever since Km left was broken by the sound of cheering, and even a couple of hicka bicka boos and hooshas. The Possible family jumped up and down and gave each other hugs in the living room, glad that all of their daughter's planning had paid off, that their enemies were defeated, but most importantly, that Kim herself was safe and sound.

Although the faint sounds of celebration traveled all the way upstairs, Kim's room was still relatively quiet and peaceful. The still silence of the the room did not match its appearance, however. It looked messier than it had in a long time, partly because Kim had spent the last week or two feverishly planning on how to reverse Drakken and Shego's domination over the world after getting the antidote to the brainwashing formula, and partly because of the mess she had made in trying to bring her boyfriend back to her side.

Lying in the debris, an open box marked with green and black could be seen on the floor. A vial of fluid was missing from the box, since Kim Possible had taken it out and used it already. A note, which had also been in the box when Kim opened it, still lay inside. The paper was unfolded, and on it, a message was written in green ink.

It read:

_ Kim -_

_ I'm guessing you've figured out why I let you go free by now. I've been watching you for a long time, and it's hard to believe you would actually give up, but that's what you've done, isn't it? I defeated you completely. And I gotta admit, it was nice to see you brought down a peg or two._

_ The problem is that I'm starting to realize it wasn't worth it. There's nothing to do when I have no enemies left, and there's nothing very interesting about my life when I'm not running from something or beating somebody down. I think we're more alike than you'd like to admit – we both need to keep moving, we both need to prove ourselves. You need to keep trying to save the world, even though I don't think you'd like the world if you ended up locking away all the bad guys, and I need to have prissy little do-gooders like yourself always interfering with my business. I've seen what it's like when I don't have that, and I've realized it's not what I want. Honestly, you were a lot more fun when you were giving me a hard time._

_ Anyway, here's the antidote. Drakken told me it was powerful, so a little bit should do a lot, even if it's diluted. I'd suggest you use a bit of it on some brainiacs and have them figure out what to do with the rest of it. Copying our weather machine idea and spreading it through water systems would be my suggestion, but it's really up to you. I'm not going to change things myself, and I'm not going to turn myself in or give up. I can't betray Drakken, and it would be too easy anyway. If you want to make things the way they were, you have to work for it, and you have to defeat me. Professional pride and all that. I'm sure you get it._

_ Oh, and like I said, I don't want Doctor D to know about my role in this. I don't know how he'd take it, but I like working with him. It's important that he thinks I had nothing to do with unraveling everything, so you need to keep this to yourself. In order to make sure you do, here's the deal – you make sure Drakken doesn't find out I undermined his plan, and I will keep an eye on him in the future and make sure he doesn't get any bright ideas like this again._

_ You and I both know that you don't have the guts to take care of us permanently, and we'll eventually break out of whatever prison is holding us, so I am the only thing stopping Drakken from pulling off something like this all over again. I liked the balance we had before Drakken got too smart for his own good, and I have enough influence over him that I think I can bring that balance back._

_ I'm looking forward to taking you on - it's been way too long. Don't disappoint me, Princess._

XX

The palace was cleared of henchmen, and Kim and Ron stood in the midst of a convoy of Global Justice vehicles as Drakken and Shego were led into an unmarked black van. They sat down on benches on either side of the van's interior, hands manacled behind their backs. Several Global Justice agents joined them as escorts. Shego looked out at Kim Possible as she took her seat.

"Until next time, Kimmie."

Shego's smiling face disappeared as an agent closed the van's doors. The engine roared, and the van drove away as Kim and Ron watched.

"Where are they going?" she asked Dr. Director, who was standing beside them.

"Don't worry, we'll take care of them from here on out," the eyepatched agent said. "They won't be escaping this time. You two should take a break and enjoy yourselves – you've earned it."

Kim wasn't so sure about Global Justice keeping a tight lid on Drakken and Shego, but she supposed that there wasn't much she could do about it. Sooner or later, she knew she would probably have to deal with them again. For now, though, the world was in the process of being brought back to normal. As normal as things got for Kim Possible, anyway.

They still had to wrap up a few things with Global Justice, but Kim was finally free. She wrapped an arm around Ron as they watched all the bustling activity around them. Several more Global Justice vehicles were accompanying the van holding Drakken and Shego, and even more uniformed people were going back and forth, in and out of the palace. Sometimes carrying computers and papers, sometimes leading captured henchmen into their own transport vans.

"I kind of wanna go back inside and play around in that water park," said Ron.

Kim rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She could do without seeing the palace again anytime soon.

"We still have to stick around for a while," she said, "but I was thinking maybe we could just go back to my house after that. What do you say?"

Ron thought about it a moment. The palace _would_ be fairly crowded. Maybe the water park could wait. And he still felt a little guilty about wrecking Kim's room during their fight, so he would have to help her clean that up.

"Alright, KP. You changed my mind."

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - Hope you guys liked it. I wanted to kind of bring the story full-circle with an action packed climax. Maybe jumping the shark was ridiculous, but I couldn't resist, and I liked the weird meta idea that adding a shark jumping scene might cause my story to jump the shark itself, hehe._

_The fight scene between Kim and Ron was not originally in this story, Ron not being one of the main characters, but since some of you mentioned Kim fighting Ron as well as Ron's MMP in some of the reviews, I guess the idea got stuck in my mind and was too tempting to resist. I do think the idea of Kim and Ron being enemies forced to fight each other is interesting, and I realized it was pretty easy to put in this chapter, so thanks for that! :)_

_The next (and final) chapter will give you a peek at what happens to Drakken and Shego as well as wrap things up with Kim and co._


	8. Freedom

**Freedom**

XX

Night had fallen over Middleton, and for a town of citizens released only hours ago from mental enslavement, there was surprisingly little rejoicing. The streets were even quieter than usual, and through the windows of various houses in the suburbs, people could be seen sitting on their couches or around their kitchen tables, deep in thought. There was a lot to think about - Drakken and Shego's capture had been all over the news that afternoon, and most of the world was now free from the brainwashing formula. People in Middleton, as elsewhere, had a long trail of memories which were dominated by an irrational love of the two villains.

Many people found themselves with mixed emotions. They were free: free to think and do what they wanted, free from the mental manipulation of another, and yet they were also free of the passion they had felt in that time. Freed from a fixation on Drakken and Shego that had, in its own way, given a certain meaning and direction in their lives. Most people were happy to be rid of the control of the brainwashing formula – some more than others – but everyone, at least in some small part of their mind, recognized a bittersweet quality to their mental change.

Down a dark suburban street, through a yard filled with the chirps of crickets, through the glow of a kitchen window, one particular group of Middleton residents could be seen who were also deep in thought. Kim Possible, her family, and Ron Stoppable were enjoying some takeout pizza, all of them too tired and bothered by their past memories to make an effort at cooking. They were thinking about many of the same things as their neighbors in Middleton and in the rest of the world.

Jim and Tim, who had been circling each other over a last piece of pizza lying in the box, seemed like they had gotten over the brainwashing more quickly than their parents. "I can't believe he let Kim walk around free without being brainwashed!" said Tim as he lunged for the pizza.

"Yeah," said Jim, pushing his brother aside. "That was a dumb move on his part. If it was us, we totally would have brainwashed Kim first!"

"Thanks guys," said Kim. "It wasn't Drakken who let me go free, though. That was Shego's idea."

"Why did she do that?" the tweebs asked in unison.

Kim thought about how to answer their question, but she didn't know if she could explain it to anyone who had not known Shego for as long as she did. Kim understood Shego's motivation for doing what she did, as twisted as it was, but she didn't know if she would ever forgive her foe. Not that Kim was exactly forgiving towards Shego in the first place.

"It's kind of hard to explain."

James Possible pulled his two sons back from the pizza carton and cut the remaining slice in half, handing a piece to each of them. "I can't believe I actually wanted to stand around fanning Drew Lipsky all day," said James. "The man can't even tan. His skin is blue! The whole thing was low, even for Drew."

Ron took a bite of his pizza and nodded in agreement with Kim's father. "It's weird, having these memories about myself when I believed something completely different than I do now. Like, on the one hand I feel violated, but the other hand I keep having these moments where I feel scared. Kinda unsure of myself. It's like now Drakken and Shego aren't such a big part of my life anymore, I have no center. Nothing to organize my thoughts around."

Kim had a hard time understanding what they meant, since she had not been brainwashed herself for more than a few brief moments, but she supposed that living in an altered state of mind for so long must be hard to shake off. She and Ron had spent most of the afternoon after the palace takeover in a sort of debriefing with Global Justice, along with numerous political and scientific figures. They had talked about the effects of the brainwashing formula and how people might react once the formula was no longer effecting them.

"Dr. Director told us there were still groups of people fighting to put Drakken and Shego back in power even though they weren't brainwashed anymore," she said. "It's kind of hard to believe."

Kim's mother shrugged at the news. "I'm not that surprised," she said. "It's not that different from fundamentalists, or people who put too much faith in any other leader. They want that simple world view. Even if you show them their beliefs are faulty, they're reluctant to give them up."

Kim supposed her mother was right. Anne's explanation was much the same as what she had heard from certain people at the Global Justice debriefing.

The scientists at the debriefing had told her that almost everyone would experience some strange feelings over the next few weeks, maybe even months – flashes of yearning for the way things were, a wistfulness for what had been a simpler way of thinking – but that everything would return to normal once people got back into life's daily routines without Drakken and Shego's constant physical and mental presence in their world. Whether the scientists were right, Kim could only hope. Something about the way they talked about the formula and its effects on the human mind made Kim suspect they didn't know as much as they were pretending, but for now, there was nothing she could do but take their word for it.

XX

"Enjoy your cell, scumbags. You ain't getting' outta here in a long time, lemme tell ya!"

The guard left as he slammed the steel door, leaving Shego and Drakken to themselves.

Shego had gotten a brief look at the cell door when she and Drakken were being pushed inside, and it looked like it worked under some kind of electronic locking mechanism. She tuned her ears to the sound of the guard outside, and was fairly sure she heard the faint sound of a keycard being swiped to lock the door. She took a seat on the lower bunk of the cell's bunk bed, and Drakken sat in a small bench welded onto the wall opposite her.

The sound of the guard laughing trailed faintly down the hall outside. Shego waited until it was silent and began to look at her surroundings. The cell looked fairly solid, but there were usually weaknesses; numerous occasions in the slammer had taught her that. And even if there weren't any weaknesses in the cell itself, she already knew of one other weakness. That stupid guard. Human error accounted for most of her escapes, and while she knew they'd be under heavier guard than usual this time, that just meant more opportunities for their captors to slip up.

"I wish they'd give us some flowers," Drakken complained. "Not a very homey atmosphere, is it?"

Shego ignored him. To tell the truth, she was a little relieved that they had gotten off so easy. Their sentence was a long one, but it could have been worse. They had been shuttled around to various clandestine locations for days, interrogated mainly by Global Justice agents, at first. Before long, however, a number of other people also taken part in their questioning.

Maybe people from the CIA, people higher up on the ladder of authority. Some of them had carried faint accents in their speech – Shego recognized one of their visitors speaking in a Mandarin Chinese accent, although she could not place most of the accents. Who was interrogating them, she could only guess. Shego had been starting to worry if she and Drakken would disappear permanently, but then the interrogations abruptly ceased with no explanation. And now, here they were.

Shego had no idea why the interrogations had stopped, although she could hazard a few guesses. The subject of the interrogations had increasingly turned towards the makeup of the brainwashing formula and its antidote. How Drakken had designed them, what else he had designed, whether Drakken had given these formulas to particular governments. She got the impression that a lot of countries were interested in Drakken's invention, or maybe in Drakken's mind itself. For all his faults, he was even more of a genius than Shego gave him credit for. Maybe he was more valuable alive than dead. Either they had friends in high places, or they had enemies in high places that decide they were more valuable than dead.

The events since their capture had given Shego an unsettling feeling that maybe supervillains were not actually that super when it came to villainy. She and Drakken were, perhaps, small fish in a worldwide pond with much more dangerous creatures swimming through its murky depths.

"I've had some time to think over the last few days," said Drakken, "and I've already begun to cobble a new plan together. I was thinking that maybe we've been going about this the wrong way, Shego. We keep flouting the law, but who has the power in the end? Those who _make_ the law!"

Drakken wrung his hands together in anticipation of carrying out the evil scheme that was forming in his mind. "You see, I was thinking about the new age of information we live in and how we could take advantage of that. Maybe I could brainwash just a few key people and get myself into a position where I have some kind of talk show, or a radio show.

"Then, I could use my media pulpit to spread lies and misinformation – repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth, after all. I could make people afraid, make them feel oppressed, position myself as a voice for the masses, and convince them to vote me into office. That's what I really need, after all. Political power! How can we be arrested when I'm the one making the laws? Plus, if I had a radio show, I wouldn't be lying to my mother anymore!"

Shego frowned. As ridiculous as it sounded, Drakken did have a certain charisma about him, and he was headed in a direction that had certainly been demonstrated throughout history to be effective. Maybe it was time for her to make good on her promise to Kim and steer that crazed blue head of his in another direction.

"Uh, sure Doctor D, that sounds okay, but it's been done before. Not very original at all."

"No?"

"Nope. Besides, where's the fun in that? You want to do something where you can make some crazy invention, don't you? Think about the supervillain code, think about tradition. The way you're going after world domination is just as important as actually doing it. It's not the destination, it's the journey, as they say. You gotta do something original. Something stylish! The whole reason you gave your mom the radio show excuse to hide your supervillain lifestyle was because it was totally mundane, something a regular person would do, right?"

Drakken pondered Shego's advice.

"Hmm. You may be right, Shego. What do you suggest, then?"

It was Shego's turn to ponder; she needed the most ridiculous concept she could come up with, something that had very little chance of succeeding, but something that would appeal to Drakken at the same time.

"How about sharks with lasers on their heads?"

Drakken formed a mental image that was clearly giving him a lot of pleasure.

"Shego, that's brilliant! But how would it help us in defeating our enemies on land?"

"Well, it's just the first step. But it's a good start."

"Yes," Drakken agreed, nodding malevolently. "Yes, a good start indeed."

Shego turned and lay back in the bunk, relieved to see that Drakken was following her line of thought. Hopefully the brainwashing scheme had just been a fluke. Usually, Drakken's schemes fizzled out before they got anywhere near actual world domination, but sometimes he struck gold. The Lil Diablos and the MC Ultra formula had been two hits in a row, which was quite a coincidence, but a pair of successes didn't quite make a pattern. As long as he wasn't actually turning into a more practical sort of genius, Shego didn't think it would be too hard to keep him in check.

She folded her arms behind her head and stared at the frame of the bunk above her. The fight with Kim had been invigorating. Shego realized now that, as much as she may have enjoyed Kim's total defeat at first, she had grown to dislike the sight of a Kim Possible who had given up. Kim was a fighter, just like her. Shego had a certain grudging respect for her foe that had been lost in the excitement of victory. _Heck_, she told herself, _just admit it. You need Kim Possible. You're two sides of the same coin, and you can't get heads all the time._

Never before had Shego enjoyed losing so much. Kim Possible was back in business, and soon she and Drakken would be up to no good as well. Breaking out of their cell might be easy, or it make take a little longer, but Shego knew it was only a matter of time before she and Drakken would be back to their old ways, engaging in some wildly misguided scheme and fighting off that insufferable teen and her clumsy sidekick.

It was not until Shego had won completely that she realized how much perverse enjoyment she got out of being hit by a snappy one-liner from that redhead. Hearing that familiar, inexplicably shocked '_Kim Possible?_' from Drakken, or the sound of Ron tripping on something. Turning in shock to see their teen foes smirking at them in what Drakken had insisted was a well guarded lair. And then the fights - oh, the fights!

Shego couldn't wait to be defeated again.

XX

"Go – Mad Dogs, go – go – Mad Dogs!"

The electronic scoreboard counted down into the final seconds of the game as the Middleton Mad Dogs cheerleading team pulled out all the stops in rousing the game's audience. Kim did several cartwheels and got into position for another pyramid as her squad mates moved into formation with her. The crowd was shouting and cheering as the two teams on the field also got into formation, preparing for a final play.

As far as high school football games went, this one was unusually tense; partly it was because it was a close game, with the Upperton Ungulates narrowly in the lead, and partly because it was the school's first game after Drakken and Shego had been defeated and MC Ultra was neutralized worldwide. Mostly neutralized, anyway. Kim wondered if the spectators at the game were just excited to be pouring their passion into something by choice, instead of saddled with a forced passion they had never asked for.

But now was not the time to get philosophical. Now was the time to step on Bonnie's back.

"Come on, K!" Bonnie hissed.

The pyramid was in formation and ready for its crowning piece. Kim vaulted to the top and raised her pom-pons in the air, spurring the audience into a louder cheer as the ball was hiked and the two teams broke their lines into opposing waves of attack. Kim was facing the crowd, but as the audience's cheer reached new heights in response to something happening on the field, she couldn't help but try to crane her neck around and see what was going on. Her boyfriend had the ball. He was driving it down the field, dodging Upperton players left and right. Kim joined the deafening cheer rising up from the stands as Ron ate up yards like they were Nacos.

Fifteen, ten, five... touchdown.

Kim was too excited to notice that in twisting around to see the field, she had set the pyramid off balance. She caught a brief glimpse of Ron beginning to perform some kind of incredibly embarrassing end zone dance before performing her own embarrassing topple. The pyramid sank to the ground in a heap, cushioning Kim with the bodies of her teammates. Those on the bottom of the pyramid were not as lucky.

"Uuugh, Kim!" came several muffled voices.

Kim rolled gingerly off of her teammates and helped them up, apologizing profusely. Bonnie groaned as she got up, brushing grass from herself, and shot daggers at her teammate.

"What was _that_ about, Kim?"

"Sorry Bonnie. I guess I just got distracted by my boyfriend."

"Oh, rub in the fact that Brick's in college why don't you! It must be nice to have a boyfriend to distract you when you're supposed to be doing your job. Can't you do _anything_ right?"

Kim sighed as she made sure the rest of her teammates were okay. Strangely enough, she almost enjoyed being berated by Bonnie.

"Hey Bonnie?"

"Yeah?"

"It's nice to have you back."

Bonnie glared for a moment, but just before she turned around to join the rest of the cheer squad as they spilled out onto the field to congratulate the team, Kim thought she noticed a brief glimpse of a smile.

The two teams gathered around each other to shake hands and pat backs – there seemed to be no hard feelings about the outcome, as everyone was just happy to be playing a carefree game of non-brainwashed football – and before Kim had taken a few steps onto the field, one player emerged from the others and ran towards her. Ron Stoppable removed his helmet and threw it aside just before embracing Kim.

"Nice job, Ron!"

"Thanks. You totally missed my cool end zone dance though, I noticed your pyramid was collapsing. You okay?"

"Oh yeah, I'm fine. So not the drama. That was Bonnie's fault, anyway."

"Hey!" came an indignant voice from nearby.

Ron would have to go to the locker room before long, but Kim led him towards the stands since she knew that their friends would want to congratulate him on making the winning touchdown. She saw Monique, Felix, and Wade picking their way down through the crowds of rejoicing spectators, but just as they reached the edge of the field, Ron was stopped by a thick hand on his shoulder.

"Oh, hey Mr. Barkin."

Mr. Barkin nodded curtly. "Nice run there at the end, Stoppable."

"Thanks!"

"Might I suggest," he continued, "that you follow up this victory on the field with some victories against your constant punctuality problems? You've been late to class for almost a week now."

"Come on Mr. B, I only got to class on time before because I was brainwashed! It's not fair to hold me up to that kind of standard."

"Lack of brainwashing is no excuse, Stoppable. You too, Possible – you have a dangerously high number of absences this year."

Kim's eye twitched in frustration a little. "I was busy saving the world and releasing your mind from the control of evil supervillains, Mr. Barkin. Isn't that some kind of extenuating circumstance?"

Mr. Barkin thought about it for a moment.

"Maybe. I'll have to do some calculations."

After telling Ron he had to be in the locker room with his teammates before long, Mr. Barkin left to talk to some the other players as Monique, Felix, and Wade congratulated Ron on the team's victory, as well as complimenting Kim on her cheer moves, minus the unfortunate ending. Ron stopped to chat with his friends for a moment, but excused himself from the group before long to join the rest of his team as they went inside the school.

Felix looked around at the fans leaving the stands to start on their way home. "So, what's the plan now?" he asked.

"Don't ask me," said Wade. "I don't know what people do after a game."

Monique punched Wade playfully on the shoulder, which made just the faintest hint of a blush spread across his cheeks. "You gotta get out more, boy. Stop sitting in front of that computer all day."

Kim had to agree. "I am kind of amazed you actually came in person to watch the game. I was half expecting you to send a Wade-bot when I heard you were going to be here."

"What can I say? I guess it seemed like it would be nice to get some fresh air after I was stuck in that palace for so long, doing Drakken and Shego's dirty work."

Kim thought about Wade's situation, and while she had not experienced the brainwashing herself for more than a handful of minutes during that first mission to stop the weather machines, she could imagine it must be disconcerting to have all the memories that Wade now held. While Kim had been trapped with her own family, she had sometimes thought it would be better to be brainwashed, but she wasn't sure who really had it worst. She supposed the important thing now was that it was all in the past.

"By the way, Wade, have you heard anything new about Drakken and Shego?"

Wade shook his head.

"Global Justice is keeping pretty tight-lipped. Still, I'm guessing we haven't seen the last of them."

Kim had to agree; the world wouldn't be back to normal if Drakken and Shego weren't finding some way to escape from capture. Maybe she would have some extra time to enjoy herself in this case, since the two of them had probably made a lot of powerful people angry. But Kim felt almost certain that she would see them again.

It bothered Kim that her foe, even if she was defeated, had still managed to orchestrate things in the way she wanted. Shego had voluntarily chosen to give up the antidote, she had chosen to help Drakken brainwash the world in the first place, and she had chosen to change things when she was no longer happy with the world she had created. Kim had never been given that luxury.

She never had a choice, and that was what made the whole brainwashing thing so sick and wrong, even with the unexpected benefits that came with it. As much as Kim liked the idea of world peace, it was only a good thing if people chose it. And, optimist though Kim was, she decided that humanity as a whole would never choose such a thing unless they were forced, which was exactly what Drakken had demonstrated. Kind of a paradox, she thought. The only way world peace could be achieved was by making it a bad thing.

Ron had just managed to extricate himself from the congratulations of his teammates back in the locker room, and rejoined the group as they left the field and walked aimlessly into town.

"Ron, did you take a shower?" Kim asked playfully as she scrunched her nose.

"Yes, yes I did. What are you suggesting?"

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."

"Maybe we should go to Bueno Nacho," Monique suggested. "Come on Ron, I know you're gonna back me up here."

"Sounds like a plan to me."

The group headed towards their favorite fast food hangout. Kim knew it would probably be crowded after such a packed game, but she also knew that there was no changing Ron and Monique's mind when they had both decided on Bueno Nacho. But she could deal with crowds. She was just happy to be enjoying a life of freedom with her friends around her.

The last few months of Kim's life had been some of the hardest ones she had ever faced, and she still felt angry when she thought about what her foe had done to her. Shego had definitely crossed a line, and judging by the letter Kim had gotten in the package along with the antidote, maybe Shego had realized that.

Kim couldn't do much except hope that Shego had learned a lesson. If she did break free, Kim would just have to be on top of things. Hopefully she would keep her promise in the letter and make sure that things did not go too far with Drakken's evil schemes again. There was something simultaneously bizarre and understandable about the idea of Shego helping Drakken pursue world domination except in the case that he actually got close to achieving it. She didn't want the victory as much as she wanted the fight.

And Shego had been right – Kim probably wouldn't enjoy a world in which she had no enemies to defeat. She wouldn't enjoy a world without Shego, either. No one else could really challenge Kim physically the way she did – no other opponent kept her on her toes, forced her to put everything into the fight. In a way, Shego was a big factor in what kept Kim's skills honed and let her defeat all her other enemies time and time again.

Kim still hated Shego, maybe even more than ever now that she had been put through so much. But she had to admit that she was looking forward to defeating her again.

XX

* * *

_**Notes** - That's it! Hope you guys liked it._

_I wanted to explore the effects of the brainwashing formula a little more in the conclusion, especially how people might feel after being released from it, and I wanted to address Drakken and Shego. I also wanted to show Kim enjoying life with her friends, since she's been sort of morose for much of this story, and while I think she would be like that in this situation, it's a bit different than her portrayal on the show, so I wanted to end it with a scene that kind of brought things back to the show's tone more closely._

_I am currently in the middle of posting a Hey Arnold story, and I may write a Kim Possible one-shot sometime this weekend (we'll see), but after those I am going to take an indefinite writing break. I've been saying I'm going to do that for a while now and then I end up writing more stuff anyway, but this time it's for real, I swear! So put me on alerts if you want to catch me in the future, I guess._

_In the meantime, feel free to R&R my other stuff if you haven't before. _Going Green_ and _Back to School_ are my most popular KP stories, although they have a lighter and more upbeat tone than this one, and_ Just a Jock_ is my longest. The only story I've written with darker content than this one is _Beyond the Stone_, if you're into more unsettling themes and whatnot. So those are my suggestions._


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